


Teenage Wasteland

by GallaPlacidia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic abuse (not between drarry!), Down and Out Draco Malfoy, Feminist Draco, H/D Erised 2020, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry Potter plays the Piano freakishly well, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Sexual Abuse, M/M, Post-Hogwarts, Veritaserum, Werewolf Harry Potter, a decent amount of teenage girl angst, alcoholism of an oc character, fear of Hell, look I know the tags are scary but I promise it's not as dark as you're thinking, mild Church of England conversion, potions master draco, prolonged and continual jokes about the 2000 classic film Coyote Ugly, srsly it's actually quite uplifting by the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:22:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 51,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27393424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallaPlacidia/pseuds/GallaPlacidia
Summary: Draco never thought he’d end up as the sole guardian of a troubled teenage girl. Harry never thought he’d end up a werewolf. Being twenty-two is hard.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 325
Kudos: 1286
Collections: H/D Erised 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whileatwiltshire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whileatwiltshire/gifts).



> To whileatwiltshire: your sign up was so much fun. I loved that you gave me the freedom to go whole hog on hurt/comfort, while also giving me lots of little specifics to work in—a Draco & Pansy friendship, a Draco who makes perfumes, and most importantly, a Draco and Harry who always seem to circle one another. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
> 
> Thank you so much to Aideomai, Alexmeg, Feelsforbreakfast and Tepre for beta-ing this! Also thank you so much to the mods for organising this mammoth of a fest. BLM! Trans-rights! Happy Christmas/wintertime!

When Draco came to, Adelaide was kneeling by him, looking horribly young.

“Mmnnghh,” said Draco. Adelaide’s features relaxed into her usual sneer. She sat back on her haunches.

“You’re alive,” she said. Draco tried to sit up. The violent blood-thumping sensations in his head persuaded him that this was not a good idea.

“Head,” he said. His voice was rough from screaming.

“Head wounds always bleed a lot,” said Adelaide, bored. “You’re fine.”

Despite himself, Draco smiled.

“Reassuring,” he said.

“What did you fuck up this time?” she asked, and suddenly Draco remembered that there was nothing to smile about.

“Stayed out too long grocery shopping,” he said. Adelaide snorted.

“Stupid of you.”

“You’ve no idea,” said Draco. He put his hands to his temples then crunched up using his abs, bearing all the weight of his bloodied head in his fingers. Adelaide watched him warily, edging away as if he were contagious.

It hurt to sit. He had Potter to thank for that.

There was a pool of blood where his head had been. Adelaide handed him a clean hand towel, not looking at him.

“Addy,” he said.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Addy, this is… this is _thoughtful_ of you,” said Draco, gleefully.

“Fuck you. Tertius doesn’t ask that much of you, and he gives you room and board practically for free. How hard would it have been to get back with the fucking groceries on time?”

Draco smiled through the throbbing pain, dabbing at his hair with the hand towel.

“You were _worried_ about me,” he said.

“No, I wasn’t.” She scowled. It made her look younger than ever.

“I’m touched,” said Draco.

“Fuck y—”

“Adelaide!”

Both of them froze, staring at each other in dismay. Tertius was back. Usually he went out for a few hours after losing his temper. Draco threw her the towel and she hid it under the sofa cushion.

“Go,” he said, and lay back down, pretending to still be unconscious. He heard her scampering away, heard her hoisting on her girlfriend voice; “ _Tertius, oh, I’ve missed you!”_

Blood soaked through his clothes, and Draco stared at the ceiling, quite alone.

Tertius Malfoy had saved Draco, after Azkaban. There wasn’t another way to put it. Draco was released, three days shy of nineteen, orphaned and shell-shocked, and there had been no provisions for him. No money, no home to go to. His wand would be returned to him in two years, when his parole was over. He ran through the list of people who could help him as he signed the paperwork: parents, dead, Snape, dead, Vince, dead, Greg, still in prison, Theo, still in prison, Pansy, living with a volatile Brazilian polo player in South America, Blaise, apparently famous in Sri Lanka but banned from returning to Britain due to some unsavoury business involving his mother’s latest lover…

Draco tried to think if there was anyone else who might have some… some fragment of goodwill towards him, as his probation officer told him in unyielding terms that any infringement of the law would result in a lifetime sentence in Azkaban. His mother had a sister still living, didn’t she, but Draco had a feeling they had done something bad to her. Murdered her husband, maybe, or her child, or both. Whatever it was, it was unlikely that it had endeared him to her.

The probation officer told him he could go. He turned blindly out of the office, and ran into a man with pale blond hair and forest green robes.

“Draco,” he said, as if he were glad.

“Who are you?” asked Draco, before remembering that he no longer had anything to be imperious about, and maybe hadn’t ever. But the man just smiled.

“We haven’t met since you were a baby. I’m your Uncle Tertius.”

 _Uncontrolled_ , Lucius would say, whenever Uncle Tertius came up. He said it with a strange intensity that suggested he meant something else, but Draco had never found out what, only that this word, _uncontrolled_ , had cut Uncle Tertius off from the family completely.

“Hello,” said Draco, uncertainly.

“Well. Have you got everything?”

“Got… everything?” asked Draco. “Yes.”

“Come on, then,” said Uncle Tertius. He put one arm around Draco’s shoulder, as Draco’s father never had, and Draco leant in instinctively.

“Where are we going?” asked Draco.

“Home,” said this miraculous apparition. _Uncontrolled_. But if this was what lack of control looked like, Draco liked it. He liked the warm way Tertius smiled at him, the hospitable manner with which he showed Draco around his—admittedly tacky—mansion.

“How did you know I was being released?” asked Draco, as Tertius handed him a mug of tea and marmalade toast cut in triangles. Tertius had cut the triangles himself; no house-elves.

“I’ve been following your case in the papers. Especially since your mother…”

“Yes,” said Draco, frowning at his toast. His father had died of hunger in Azkaban; refused to eat. That had been hard enough—Draco saw it happen, saw his father grow thinner and thinner when they crossed paths on their daily walks—but he had been so sure his mother would be waiting for him when he got out. He had worried about her, about someone hurting her, but it wasn’t anything like that. Just dragon pox.

“I’m very sorry, Draco,” said Tertius. Draco nodded, unable to express how much he appreciated Tertius’ sympathy.

***

Adelaide was the first sign that something was off about Tertius. It was strange for a fifty-five-year-old man to have an eighteen-year-old girlfriend. Particularly such a _young-looking_ eighteen-year-old girlfriend. But Adelaide seemed genuinely to love him. She cried when he left the house. She _hated_ Draco, for taking attention away from her.

They very rarely saw each other. The house was huge. At first, Draco assumed she avoided him. Later, he learned that she had been ordered not to talk to him.

But although Adelaide had been a shock, Draco explained it away. There was no one else in his life, and so the idea that there was anything wrong with Tertius was too catastrophic for Draco to contemplate. He focused on the way Tertius doted on Adelaide, on the gifts he bought her, the way she watched Tertius, as if he was the whole world. Age was just a number, Draco told himself. True love should know no impediment. He could sense the excuses were flimsy. But there was no one else, and Tertius was generous to Draco. “Blood is thicker than water,” he said, and acted as if it was only natural that he should come out of nowhere and rescue Draco from the streets.

When Draco tried to get a job, Tertius put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, and told him he wanted a secretary, someone to help him run his business. (What business? Draco didn’t know, and he was so overwhelmed and grateful that he didn’t ask.) He told Draco there was no need for him to put himself through the agony of job applications as an ex-prison-convict Death Eater.

“Once you have a few years experience, it’ll be much easier,” he said, and this made sense to Draco.

“Let me pay rent, at least,” said Draco.

“Tell you what. I’ll set up a bank account for you, and detract rent from there.”

They didn’t talk numbers. They were _family_.

The mansion was in the middle of nowhere, and one of the early rules Tertius implemented was that Draco could only use the Floo to go to Tertius-approved locations.

“I worry about you,” he said.

Draco had thought all the people who worried about him were dead. He obeyed without questioning.

There were more rules after that, rules that, if broken, ruined Draco’s day, his week. Tertius would be angry and taciturn for days if Draco brought back the wrong pasta sauce from the shops. Draco was keenly aware that he owed everything to Tertius, and it was hideously frightening when he made Tertius angry.

When Tertius was in a good mood, he treated Draco the way Draco had always _longed_ for his father to treat him: called him funny, or clever, or brave, touched him, ruffled his hair.

Once, Draco thought he saw a bruise on Adelaide’s wrist, but she pulled down her sleeve and climbed into Tertius’ lap and it had probably just been the lighting.

Tertius didn’t let Draco receive mail, because people might send Draco curses in the post.

One day, Draco couldn’t find bananas in the shop, and he shouted at the blank-eyed teenager at the till, and walked a mile to the next shop, a Muggle one. He didn’t have any Muggle money. He begged a nice middle-aged woman to buy them for him, making up a pregnant girlfriend with a potassium craving. The woman clearly didn’t believe him, but she bought the bananas all the same. Draco was astonished, both by the lengths to which he had been willing to go to avoid Tertius’ ill-humour, and by the kindness of that Muggle woman, who a few years ago Draco might glibly have wished death upon.

Tertius saw the Muggle price sticker on the bananas and was even angrier than if Draco hadn’t brought them back at all. He smashed his fist into the kitchen cabinets, bloodying his knuckles, and then brandished his bleeding hand at Draco.

“Look what you did!” he said.

“I’m sorry,” said Draco, “I’m so sorry!”

Tertius docked his pay. It was harder for Tertius to do his business because of his hurt hand, so Draco had cost him money. The punishment felt rather abstract, because Draco had never actually seen any of his wages. Whenever he asked about it, Tertius asked him why he needed money, didn’t Tertius take good care of him? Was there anything he wanted for?

And, later: did Draco really think anyone else would ever care about him? Did he really want to push Tertius, make Tertius think he was ungrateful?

The first time Tertius hit him, it didn’t come as a surprise. Adelaide had laughed at something Draco had said, and Adelaide belonged to Tertius, so Draco didn’t expect anything else, really. Adelaide didn’t look surprised, either. Draco reeled backwards, still apologising, and Tertius’ bad humour fell from him like a veil.

“Draco—I’m sorry—I just saw red—you know how I love my girl—”

Adelaide raised her eyebrows as if she found it all quite funny. Maybe it was. Draco couldn’t see it, though.

Draco realised that this was really a pretty bad situation the second time he tried to leave.

The first time, he got away, all the way to Piccadilly Circus. He stood in front of the Waterstones, pretending to look at the books, but really looking at his own reflection in the glass. People jostled him, so many people, so many thousands of people who did not care if he lived or died. The books on the display case all cost £9.99. Draco didn’t know how much that was in real money, but he knew he didn’t have it. Where would he go? Who would take him? No one, there was no one. It was a dizzying realisation, one that came to him constantly, in waves. He had grown up so confident in his security. In the idea that people wanted him, and that he would always be taken care of.

He stared at the books until the street lamps turned on, and went back to the mansion. Tertius knocked him once around the head for being late, but he didn’t guess what Draco had been considering. He was in a good mood that night, and after his flame of anger had abated, he pressed a cold compress to Draco’s cheek and told him, “Us Malfoys have to stick together, eh?”

Had Tertius taken him in to wreak a posthumous revenge on Lucius? Draco thought that sometimes. But mostly he felt that Tertius’ heart was in the right place, that he just struggled with his anger. That if he could only get a grip on that, it would all be all right; and Draco would have a real family again.

The second time he ran away was when he realised that Tertius’ little anger problem was going to kill either him or Adelaide, and that the only question was who would go first. This time, there could have been no doubt that Draco had done a runner: he stayed away for two nights, sleeping on benches and trying to figure out what to do. He ended up at a Muggle homeless shelter, but he didn’t understand any of the questions they asked him, things like Did he have a National Insurance Number? and Was he registered with a GP?

They gave him a muffin in plastic wrapping. It had fruit in it, the bad kind. Draco ate it and decided that he could stick it out with Tertius until he was twenty-one and got his wand back. With his wand, everything would be easier.

He went back in the morning, before Tertius could have a chance to start drinking. Tertius wasn’t home, but Adelaide lay at the bottom of the stairs in a crumpled heap.

“Fuck you,” she said, when he had got her awake (there was a terrifying moment when he thought she was dead, and she looked so young, he knew she was eighteen but sometimes she looked more like _fifteen_ … younger, even…). “Seriously, fuck you!”

“I think your arm’s broken,” said Draco.

“Oh, and whose fault is that?” said Adelaide. “Ow ow ow ow!”

“Shhh,” said Draco, tying up her dangling arm into a sling. “There. He’ll fix it when he gets back, won’t he?”

Adelaide gave him a dark look.

“He wouldn’t have lost his temper in the first place if you hadn’t been such an ungrateful piece of shit,” she said.

Draco didn’t know how to answer that. Distantly, he knew that wasn’t really how blame worked, but he couldn’t deny that his actions had led to Adelaide’s broken arm.

“I’m sorry,” he told her.

“You should be. I hate you.”

He laughed at that. It was sort of refreshing, to have someone hate him for a new reason.

“Let me help you to the sofa,” he said.

“Fuck you,” said Adelaide, but she let him more or less carry her to the sitting room, where he propped her up on pillows and tucked blankets around her knees. She watched him tend to her with a suspicious look. “Do you want to fuck me?” she asked, finally.

Draco laughed again.

“Not in the least.”

“When I’m well. Not right now, obviously,” she said.

“Yeah, no, still not.”

She tilted her chin up.

“You must be gay,” she said. “Everyone wants to fuck me.”

“I’m not so gay that I wouldn’t be tempted if I found you even remotely attractive,” said Draco.

“Fuck you!” she said, which made Draco laugh more, because it reminded him of Pansy, a bit. Then he remembered Pansy properly, and how much he longed for her. He stopped laughing.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” he added. “I’m not saying you’re not pretty.”

“ _Pretty_ ,” said Adelaide scathingly, and refused to talk to him anymore. But after that, she was a little less hostile to him, just a fraction more friendly, as if she was intrigued by the idea of a man who didn’t want to sleep with her. As if she wanted to know more.

When Tertius came back, he didn’t hit Draco. He showered Draco with affection and gifts, made Draco feel as if he had been crazy to run away in the first place. But there was a blood stain at the bottom of the stairs that lasted long beyond Adelaide’s bruises and hastily healed broken arm, and whenever Draco looked at it he remembered that there was a timer hanging over both of them. He knew this feeling, had felt it before, with Voldemort: the feeling that he was expendable.

Did he hate Tertius? It was complicated. He hated him when he hurt Adelaide: it was simple, then. She was hard and vulnerable and bright, and Draco knew without asking that she’d had a rough time of it. She just had that air about her; like she’d never known goodness. When he caught glimpses of bruises on her face, he fantasised about holding Tertius down and punching, punching with iron fists that wouldn’t stop until all the bones were shattered and concave, until Tertius was _sorry for what he had done_.

When Tertius hit him, that was another matter. It was like Old Times, practically nostalgic. It had been shocking, at first, when Voldemort tortured him, but humans will get used to anything, and Draco’s boundaries for how he expected to be treated had become loose and sloppy in the war. There wasn’t much that surprised him, anymore.

After the second time he tried to run away, he realised two things: that there was no life for him out there, and that Adelaide would be killed if he left her behind. At night, he lay in his little single bed and tried to puzzle it out: _take Adelaide_. But she slept in Tertius’ bed, and was kept away from Draco, he almost never saw her alone, and anyway, she wouldn’t consent to leave. She loved Tertius. She always sided with him. _Kill Tertius_. But Draco couldn’t face Azkaban again, and he didn’t delude himself into thinking anyone would believe him if he claimed self-defence. _Inform the authorities_. This one took up most of his time, because it was the most sensible option, particularly now that Draco had a better grip on Tertius’ business, which was illegal potions trading. But the Floo Network was monitored, and Draco only ever had enough money to buy precisely what he was told to get. Returning without resulted in violent repercussions.

He knew he could have figured it out, in fifth year, when his brain was sharp. But he was so muddled with fear all the time—had been, for so long—that his thoughts were cloudy and slow. He would sense a solution, then think, _Did I leave the pantry door open? Oh God, I did, but if I go down and close it he’ll—and if I leave it he’ll—_ and the slippery idea that had half-formed in the back of his mind would be lost. Over and over it happened, and there was no way out, for him or for Adelaide, and after a while he stopped worrying about it. There is a level of misery which makes higher thought impossible, and Draco slid easily into it, unsurprised and resigned to what adulthood meant for him.

He’d been there for a year when it happened. He was at the market, buying ingredients for a ragout, and suddenly Potter was there, right at his side, holding a plastic-wrapped package of meat cutlets and staring at him with wide-awake eyes.

“Malfoy,” he said, confused, probably because Draco was smiling at him: Potter. The Saviour of the Wizarding World. Why on earth had Draco never thought of it? How could he have been so stupid? Of _course_ Potter would fix everything: that was what he _did_! And he was here, gift from the heavens, smile of fate, sign of favour, in Draco’s own market, and Draco felt as if he was only just realising how much fear weighed on him, now that it was gone.

“Potter,” he said. “Long time no see.”

“Why are you smiling?” asked Potter, looking more and more suspicious, which only made Draco smile _more_ because—because when Potter was suspicious he didn’t give up, he kept looking until he found out what was wrong, and now he was looking at _Draco_ and he would find out, he would fix it all—

“Nothing,” said Draco. “No reason. Want to get a drink?”

“A… a drink?”

Potter’s eyes dropped, inexplicably, to Draco’s lips.

“Yeah,” said Draco.

“Now?”

“Scared?” asked Draco. Potter made an eye-rolly sort of expression.

“No. Fine. A drink.”

He hadn’t seen Potter since Azkaban. There had been the trial, of course, where Potter had spoken in his defence, the only reason for Draco’s relatively short sentence. But Draco had been too dazed to notice him then, really.

In Azkaban, where everything was the same, day in, day out, with the exception of Draco’s father’s increasing emaciation—there, he had noticed Potter.

He had shown up on a Thursday afternoon. Draco knew it was Thursday, because Thursday was when they served some kind of red lentil slop for lunch and the woman the next cell always screamed for a few hours afterwards. From what Draco had deduced, the slop reminded her of innards. After a few weeks of listening to her, it reminded Draco of innards, too, and he stopped being able to eat it.

She was screaming away, and Draco lay on his little cot, eyes closed, trying to remember the ingredients for the Draught of Living Death. It was how he passed the time; he brewed in his head.

“Malfoy?” said a voice. He sat up and saw Potter, wearing Auror robes, looking like an After shot in a misleading advertisement. _Become the envy of your friends in only thirty days!_

Draco got off his cot and went to look at Potter, hoping this wasn’t a hallucination. It felt different from the hallucinations he’d had.

He and Potter stared at each other. Potter had an unreadable expression on his face. He looked rather angry.

“Come to gloat?” asked Draco, finally. Potter shook his head. Then he dug his hand into his pocket and retrieved a chocolate frog.

“I don’t want that,” said Draco, although he very much did.

Potter crouched and put the chocolate frog just outside Draco’s cell door. Draco would be able to slip his hand through the bars and fetch it. Draco was conscious that he hadn’t washed his hair in five days, and that Potter looked like he worked out.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” said Potter.

It probably was a hallucination, Draco decided. There weren’t many Dementors around anymore, but their magic clung to walls, and Draco was quite often woken up by Nagini, slithering into his bed and tenderly wrapping her strong body around his throat, stopping his breath.

When Draco didn’t answer him, Potter ducked his head, embarrassed, and left. After he had gone, Draco reached for the chocolate frog. It was real, and so, therefore, had been Potter.

The chocolate warded away the clinging, icy misery for almost twenty minutes. As he ate, he remembered that he would get out one day, and there would be trees, and sunrises, and wide open skies, even if there was nothing else. He thought, then, of Potter’s strong reaction to Dementors in school. He wondered if Potter had known what effect the chocolate would have. It was kind of Potter, if so—it was kind either way.

They hadn’t seen each other since. But Potter now looked even better than he had that day.

They bought their groceries and stood together on the street. Potter gestured towards a nearby coffee shop.

“No,” said Draco, with a jolt of panic. Someone might see them together, and tell Tertius. Anyway, he didn’t have any money. “No, take me to yours.”

Potter looked taken aback. His eyes dropped to Draco’s mouth again. Then he smiled.

“Yeah,” he said. “Good idea.”

Draco expected Potter to take his arm, but instead Potter went for his hand, threading their fingers together. Potter’s hand was warm and dry and safe. Draco scanned the street for familiar faces, saw none, and breathed easier in the last few seconds before Potter Apparated him away.

The hall was dark, with a knocked-over umbrella stand, and patches of foggy grey light flowing through the diamond windows. It was bizarre being in someone else’s house. Tertius never allowed him to visit anyone.

Potter still had Draco’s hand. It was Draco’s good one, thankfully. Draco stared at him, dizzy from the Apparition, from the sudden sense of rescue, of security.

Potter pushed him back against the door and stepped close, nudging his nose against Draco, and Draco only realised with dim astonishment that Potter was going to kiss him a split second before it happened.

It had never occurred to Draco to kiss Potter, but now that it was going on, it seemed like a pretty good idea, actually. Potter’s mouth was hot and hesitant, until Draco kissed back, when it became much more than just a mouth, a kiss. It became Potter’s whole body pressed up against Draco’s, his hand in Draco’s hair, his muscles hard under Draco’s touch, his breath at Draco’s ear. Draco hadn’t thought about his dick since, oh, maybe 1997, but now it was making itself known, enthusiastically thickening against Potter’s thigh. Draco’s body appeared to have caught up with the idea that _Harry Potter_ was kissing him much quicker than Draco himself. Draco rolled his hips forward, and Potter moaned into his mouth.

“I knew it,” said Potter.

“Knew… what?” asked Draco.

“That you wanted it, too,” said Potter, moving against Draco’s erection.

“Ahh,” said Draco, eloquently.

Potter tugged at Draco’s jacket, drew it off his shoulders. It dropped to the floor, crumpling on the bags of groceries. Potter ran his hands busily up and down Draco’s arms, then kissed the corner of his mouth.

“Come on,” he said, and pulled at Draco’s hand. Draco stumbled after him, up the dusty stairs, into a messy bedroom. With a bed in it.

“Sex?” asked Draco, in disbelief. Sex? Potter wanted to have _sex_ with him? He had assumed Potter would rescue him out of pity. Lust was most definitely a step-up, although it was a truly bizarre, parallel-universe sort of twist. Was Potter even gay?

Potter appeared to wholly misinterpret Draco’s question. He grinned.

“Yeah, okay,” he said. “If you want.”

Draco had never gone from not-knowing-he-wanted-something to _longing for it_ so fast. He wanted Potter’s warm, confident hands all over him. He wanted to see Potter naked. The abrupt, reckless, superfluous desire made him feel like a _person_ again.

“Yes,” he said, his voice not much louder than a whisper. Potter grinned even wider, pushed Draco onto the bed, and climbed on top of him.

When was the last time someone had touched Draco gently? Tertius, of course, in his softer moments—but that touch was laced with fear, and Draco wasn’t frightened of Potter. Far from it: he felt safe, secure. Potter had rescued him from the Fiendfire. Potter had spoken for him at his trial. Potter had given him a chocolate frog, in prison. Potter would take care of him.

They made out on the bed, rubbing against each other, Draco’s tired mind whirling round in circles, ecstatic, relieved, thrilled, nervous. He had kissed Pansy, but that was the extent of his experience. What if he was shit? What if he was so bad Potter stopped halfway through, said “Sorry, I think I just hallucinated that I wanted to fuck you,” and kicked Draco out of the house? Potter had always been better than him at _everything_.

Then Draco remembered that he was covered in bruises and cuts under his clothes, and he winced in embarrassment. Luckily, Potter was too busy kissing his neck to see. But he would, when they undressed, he would see the bruises and stop. He would pity Draco. It was bitterly disappointing to think of Potter’s arousal turning into sympathy.

“How do you like to do it?” asked Potter, speaking quietly into Draco’s skin.

“I like… all the ways,” said Draco, because he hadn’t tried any of them, but reckoned they were probably all great.

“Aren’t you easy-going,” said Potter, with an affectionate laugh. They kissed some more, Draco growing more impatient under Potter’s body, more sure that if Potter didn’t undress him soon, he would embarrass himself, he would _beg_.

“Oh,” said Potter, still with that affection, his hand going to Draco’s groin. “Fuck, you’re so hard, I want—”

“Yeah,” said Draco. Potter huffed a quiet laugh into Draco’s mouth.

“This is mad,” he said, then opened his bedside table drawer. “Shit,” he said. “I must have left it in—stay here.” Draco nodded, breathless. Potter just looked at him for a few seconds, then held out his hand, as if saying again, _stay, stay right there_. “Be right back.”

He left the room—and his wand, which was on the bedside table. Draco scrambled for it and cast hasty Healing spells at himself. He glamoured his fucked up hand. He even healed the things that hadn’t bruised, like his twisted ankle, then threw the wand back on the table just in time.

Potter paused at the doorway to look at Draco. He was holding a small jar.

“Fuck,” he said, shaking his head. “You look…”

Draco didn’t answer. Potter thought he looked _good?_ Draco knew he used to be handsome. He had assumed that had been lost in Azkaban, along with his parents and his self-esteem.

Potter crawled onto the bed, took Draco’s face in his hands, and kissed him.

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this,” he said.

 _!!!!!,_ thought Draco.

Potter undressed him so carefully. Every three or four buttons, his eyes met Draco’s with a question, _Should I keep going_ , and every time, Draco nodded. It occurred to him that Potter might let Draco undress him, so he tried it, pulled at Potter’s t-shirt, and Potter obeyed his touch like a racing broom, instantly and effortlessly. Draco pulled the t-shirt over Potter’s head, splayed his fingers over Potter’s chest, touched the oval scar at his throat. Potter let him, his eyes wide.

“How do you want…?” he asked. Draco had no idea what he was asking.

“Whatever you…” he answered. Potter breathed out a sigh, smiling, and said,

“I’ll make it good.”

And, of course, he did. Draco was so relaxed, so sure that whatever Potter thought was a good idea would turn out to be, that it took no time at all for Potter to prepare him. Not that he rushed—he was cautious, gentle. He kept looking up at Draco for affirmation, kept smiling when he got it.

It was all very surprising, like an explosion. Draco was quietly aware that if he were more himself his feelings would be different—not that he’d object, because everything felt—wonderful—but that he would be more opinionated on the subject of Allowing Potter To Fuck Him. But he was so floaty and relieved still, as though he were dreaming, and he kissed Potter back as if there weren’t any walls between them. As if they had already done the work to get on the same page.

Potter collapsed on top of him once they’d both come. Draco’s eyes were heavy. He ran his fingers through Potter’s hair.

“That feels good,” said Potter, so Draco kept doing it, until thick, warm sleep took him.

***

He woke up terrified: an unfamiliar bed. His heart leapt into his throat, _Oh God, oh God, what’s happened, who has me now_ —and then the memories filtered back, followed closely by the realisation that the light was waning, and Potter wasn’t in the bed anymore.

Tertius would be angry when he got home.

He sat up and flinched. Despite Potter’s precautions, he was sore and uncomfortable. He was also… frightened, in a way he hadn’t been before. Worried he had embarrassed himself. Worried he had messed something up, although he wasn’t sure what. He dressed quickly, wondering where Potter was. Making a cup of tea, hopefully. Turning to him with that slow smile, beginning to talk. Draco wasn’t sure what that would look like, sound like, but he imagined—imagined—

_That was good. Unexpected, but_

_Where have you been living lately? I’ve wondered, I_

_I like kissing you, why didn’t we before, in_

_What’s wrong, how can I_

_Again, sometime, if you want, again_

Draco looked around for his jacket before remembering that it was downstairs. He went down the stairs slowly. It hurt a bit to walk, which made him feel ashamed. He didn’t want Potter to know how inexperienced he was.

His jacket wasn’t by the door anymore; only the bags of groceries.

“Potter?” he called.

“Here,” came Potter’s voice, and Draco followed it into a dark dining room. Potter stood with his head bowed, his back to Draco.

“I fell asleep,” said Draco.

“I should have known,” said Potter, and his voice was entirely changed. It was steely with fury. It was _Sectumsempra!_ and hard-eyed stalking and the word “ _Malfoy,”_ spoken like an insult. In school, Draco would have responded to anger with anger. But his brain had been recalibrated in the past few years, by Voldemort, by Tertius. He felt the flooding terror of having angered someone and not knowing what he had done: only that he would be punished for it.

“Known what,” said Draco, and Potter reeled around, holding his jacket, and a letter—Draco’s introduction letter from Tertius, the one he had to show new clients to get them to trust him. It listed him as a close associate, a business partner, and Draco realised belatedly that if it persuaded strangers that Draco was involved in Tertius’ immoral schemes, it would certainly convince Potter of the same thing.

“You work for Tertius Malfoy,” said Potter.

“I live with him,” said Draco. Potter made a cruel, scoffing noise.

“Of course you do. You always find a way to live with your boss, don’t you? First Voldemort, now—”

“You think I,” said Draco, realisation dawning slowly, because everything about him was slow these days, because two thirds of his mind was tied up in the ticking of the clock, each second that passed adding to the blows he would receive upon his return. “You think I _want_ to work for Tertius?”

Potter laughed.

“Oh, did you get dragged into it again, Malfoy? Against your will? Was poor little Malfoy tricked into being a fucking evil prick once again?”

When put like that, Draco had to admit that it didn’t sound great. He wanted to defend himself, but he couldn’t seem to find the words.

“I don’t—I want him to go down,” he managed.

“Well, that’s convenient, because now I’ve got you, I’m going to interrogate you. Sit.”

“Now?” said Draco, eyes flicking to the clock on the mantelpiece. Potter stepped forward with one lean, powerful movement, took Draco’s shoulders in his hands, and forced him roughly into a chair.

“Yes, fucking _now_ ,” he said.

“Couldn’t I—tomorrow—” tried Draco, panic garbling his thoughts.

“You think I’m going to let you slither away to warn him that we’re onto him? You must be dreaming. Why did you come here, anyway, were you trying to get information on me?”

“No, I—”

“Just thought it would be funny, did you?”

“No,” said Draco. “Please, let me come back tomorrow—”

“You move one inch and I will not hesitate to stun you, Malfoy! Do I need to tie you up?”

Draco shook his head, desperation sinking his heart. Adelaide; Tertius would go for Adelaide if Draco wasn’t back by dinner. If Draco hadn’t _made_ dinner.

Potter’s glare was filled with loathing. He kept it fixed on Draco as he summoned a quill, ink and a stack of parchment.

“You’re going to answer every one of these questions.”

“Yes, fine,” said Draco, “we just have to be—if he finds out…” his voice dried up. If Tertius found out Draco had talked to an Auror, let alone _Potter_ , he would kill him. It was a certainty. Draco had a passing familiarity with existential dread, but the thought of dying usually held a hazy appeal. Not today. Today, he thought of it only with grim, teeth-clenched horror.

“You’re such a coward,” said Potter. “I can’t believe I fell for—you’re just like your father.”

“My… father?”

“Told everyone he wasn’t to blame, in the first war, didn’t he? Played the victim, worked people’s _pity_ … and then he never changed.”

Potter wrote something on his pad of parchment so fiercely that the quill went through. _Pity_ , thought Draco. Was that what it had been? Had Potter wanted him out of pity? Potter was behaving now as if Draco had deliberately tricked him. As if Draco was the last of a long line of people who had betrayed him.

Draco’s mind wasn’t plastic enough anymore to defend himself against accusations. If Potter thought he had behaved badly, he probably had.

It hurt to sit. Draco remembered how delicately Potter had cradled his head, as if his skull was something precious. He thought of Potter’s wide eyes, of his soft skin, his stubbled cheek. Draco answered all Potter’s questions in short, halted sentences, tripping over his words, stammering in places. He sounded so guilty, he knew he did. He _felt_ guilty, although he wasn’t sure what for. He longed to get away, to hide his head in his hands, to curl up in the safety of solitude and reassure himself that no one else was there. Potter’s glare felt like a physical assault, so Draco kept his eyes fixed on the table. The light fell with evening. When Potter lit the candle, Draco knew it must be nearly seven, and he tried to calculate, with the bulky chunk of his mind that was devoted to such calculations, what being four hours late from the shops would earn him.

He didn’t know very much, but he told all that he did, all the places his uncle went, all his associates, how much money was spent where. What the packages smelled like—chopped mermaid tails, powdered centaur hoof, werewolf claws, ripped from the hands of men before they’d turned. Potter’s lip curled in distaste, but he didn’t say anything else about Draco’s moral character.

“Please,” said Draco. “That’s all I know. Please, I need to go… the, the _groceries_ …”

The ice cream would have melted. That alone would mean—

Tertius had crushed Draco’s fingers in a door hinge six months ago. They were still crooked. He grimaced at the memories and stretched his hand, aware of how fragile every part of the human body was, how easy it was to damage it.

“The _groceries_ ,” repeated Potter. Draco thought, somewhat crazily, of an article he had read once, that said scorn and contempt were the only two emotions a relationship could not survive.

“He’ll be angry,” said Draco. “When he’s angry, he’s—”

Potter pursed his lips.

“Will your life be in danger if you return,” he said, in a monotone, as if he were reading from a government questionnaire. Probably he was.

It felt as if Potter would laugh at him, if he said yes. As if Potter would call him a coward again. He could still feel all the places on his body where Potter had touched him like he mattered.

“No,” he said, dropping his eyes to his knees.

Potter leant back in his chair.

“You can go,” he said.

At the front door, his soggy groceries in hand, Potter called his name.

“Malfoy!”

Draco paused, hope flickering wearily to life in his chest. Potter came to the door. He looked so raw and hurt that for a moment Draco wanted to reach out and touch his hair again, to soothe him.

“Fuck you,” said Potter.

***

Tertius had held Draco’s face in one hand and smashed it repeatedly against the corner of the wall, until Draco had been sure he would die, or at the very least lose some important part of himself.

But after Adelaide left, (girlfriend voice, “ _Tertius, oh, I’ve missed you!”_ ), after she’d led Tertius upstairs to salve Tertius’ anger with sex, Draco managed to sit up. He retrieved the hand towel from under the sofa cushion and held it to the back of his head, which throbbed sickeningly.

He counted up in sevens. He recited a poem. He listed everything he’d had for lunch that week. He thought through the Black Family genealogy.

It was all right. He still had himself. And however dire Potter’s interrogation had been, Draco’s faith was unshaken: Potter would fix everything. He had given Potter the information he needed to fix everything.

The wounds on his head had not yet healed the day that Adelaide came into his room, her eyes huge.

“I was serious,” said Draco. “I’m not sleeping with you.”

“Shut up,” she said, closing the door behind her. “Tertius just got home.”

Draco jumped to his feet.

“Then what the hell are you doing in here? He’ll _kill_ me! He’ll kill us both!”

Adelaide looked more distracted and flustered than he’d ever seen her.

“I overheard him casting a Patronus. Something about a drop gone wrong—Aurors—werewolves—he’s, he’s mad, he’s so angry, I don’t—”

There was a split second where Draco realised he was going to have to be brave, and he didn’t give himself time to question it. Adelaide was twining a strand of hair around her fingertips so tightly that it looked as if it was cutting off the blood circulation.

“Go to your room,” he said. “Pretend to be asleep. I’ll…”

Adelaide closed her eyes in relief. She knew exactly what Draco was going to do.

“Thank you,” she said, and left.

***

The next day, Tertius sat by his bedside, spooning soup into Draco’s swollen lips. Tertius had made up the tray himself. There was a small vase of daisies on it.

“I’m so glad you came into my life,” he told Draco, gently stroking Draco’s hair out of his face, and Draco believed him, even though the fact that Tertius _meant_ it only made everything worse.

He could tell Tertius was still upset about whatever had happened with the drop, because he didn’t heal Draco for three days, just nursed him, wand in pocket, as if he were cleaning up after some faceless monster who had blacked Draco’s eyes and broken his collarbone, not himself.

Adelaide did not appear. Evidently she, too, had sensed that Tertius would not be tolerant of any disobedience just now. But a week after Draco had gone downstairs to take the beating instead of her, she came into the kitchen when he was cooking dinner.

“I’ve come to get wine,” she said, not looking at him.

“He could have summoned me,” said Draco. “I would have brought it.”

She made some incomprehensible sound and got a bottle of white wine out of the cold cupboard. Then she paused, both hands on the bottle’s neck.

“The other day—”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Draco, feeling very heroic, for once, before he remembered to be depressed that his form of heroism amounted to so little. What had Potter felt, when he slew the most evil wizard of all time at seventeen? Just another Tuesday, probably.

Adelaide nodded her head jerkily.

“Tertius loves us,” she said.

Draco sighed.

“That’s not love,” he said.

“Oh, what do you know, your parents are dead,” said Adelaide. The twist of pain Draco felt at the words wasn’t even about his own parents: it was about all the times he had said that to Potter. Adelaide had some excuse for her cruelty. Draco had just been rotten to the bone.

“Witty,” he said.

“Fuck you,” she said, stomped out of the kitchen.

“You’re welcome, by the way!” Draco called after her.

Pansy used to swear at him so often, when she was twelve. Then she got older, and decided she was a lady, thank you, and said things like, “Oh, sod off,” which Vince and Greg found uproariously funny, and Draco found rather charming. She had really fancied him at one point, and Draco had thought she was quite leggy and sexy, and she would have slept with him if he’d asked. But Draco knew Pansy too well, knew she would fall in love with him if he touched her, and knew he wouldn’t fall in love back. So he’d say “Sorry Pans, can’t fuck you or you’ll love me,” and she’d say “Oh sod off!” and Greg and Vince would laugh at her and everything was perfect. He hadn’t realised at the time that it was perfect, but it had been.

***

The Aurors came the next day. Draco was writing in the study when the wards broke, and the alarm went, and suddenly it was like the war again, explosions and shrieks and curses streaking through the house. It did not last long. Fifteen minutes later, Draco, Tertius and Adelaide had been herded into the sitting room by the Aurors. Tertius was unconscious. Draco was immediately handcuffed. Adelaide, pale and tear-streaked, gave her deposition to an Auror with a clipboard. Potter wasn’t there. Draco had thought he would be. He couldn’t decide how he felt about his absence.

“… and how old are you?” asked the Auror with the clipboard.

“Thirteen,” said Adelaide, and Draco’s vision went blurry, and the next thing he knew there were hands all over him, dragging him backwards, preventing him from kicking Tertius’ disgusting face to a _pulp_ —

“Let go—she’s—I’m going to _kill_ him—”

“Draco, stop,” said Adelaide, so he did, panting in the arms of some Auror, desperate and wild and miserable.

“You understand, Adelaide, that we’re going to have to put you in a care home,” said the Auror with the clipboard.

“No,” said Draco. Adelaide’s face was glazed with disbelieving horror. “No, she can stay with me—can’t she?”

“You’re under arrest,” pointed out the Auror holding him.

“Oh,” said Draco blankly. Somehow this hadn’t occurred to him, despite the handcuffs. “But I didn’t do anything.”

“You were living with a criminal and his underage girlfriend,” said the Auror. Adelaide snorted.

“Please,” she said. “All Draco did was buy groceries and get himself beaten up. He’s useless.”

“Can she live with me if I get off?” he looked at Adelaide. “Would you want to?”

Adelaide glanced at Tertius, prone on the floor, then nodded, once, briskly.

***

For a few days it did seem as if Draco would be sent back to Azkaban. He sat in his holding cell, trying to decide if he would bother surviving if that happened. The problem was what it had always been: he had a tenacious grip on life. He had never wanted to die, had always been willing to do terrible things and withstand dreadful indignities in order to stay alive.

But it was not a quandary he had to face, in the end. Adelaide submitted her memories to the court, and in them it was abundantly clear that Draco had been a victim, not a perpetrator. He was released, and Adelaide, once the paperwork was done, was signed over to his care.


	2. Chapter 2

Ron and Hermione met him at the Portkey station. Hermione was a little too careful, and Ron a little too rough, but it didn’t matter to Harry. They were there, and the two or three fragile friendships he had made in Los Angeles, that he had convinced himself were fine and enough, were revealed suddenly for what they were: paper-thin. He had not realised just how lonely the last two years had been until Ron slapped him on the back and Hermione smiled at him.

They went back to Grimmauld Place. Hermione had cleaned it out. All the furniture that Harry had smashed when he got bitten, when he came to understand that his life was permanently changed, had been removed.

“The Aurors would take you back, you know,” Ron told him, as they ate pizza in the kitchen.

“Oh, yeah,” said Harry. “Keep me around like a sniffer dog.”

“Is that how you thought of Lupin?” asked Hermione, and Harry was sick of it. He got up and cleared his plate. Moving helped with the ache a bit, the constant pain in his muscles. Harry ran five miles a day, because his body was agony if he didn’t, but only sex really put a damper on the dull pain, and even then, only for a short while.

“I’m not going back,” he said. He knew that behind him, Ron and Hermione were looking at each other. He knew they were disappointed, that they thought his time abroad would have helped him come to terms with it. As if Harry could ever get used to the idea of being inherently dangerous, of being _contagious_.

In any case, he’d gone to LA in the hope of a cure, not for self-acceptance. There had been a weird werewolf pandemic in the Hollywood Hills in the 60s, and consequently the Healers there had discovered all sorts of advanced treatments. But Harry had gone because there was an old crystal witch who thought she had found a cure, a way to reverse that bone crunching moment when he had been bitten. Two years he had drifted through LA’s wide, dry boulevards, hating every moment, hope keeping him bitter. And her cure _had_ worked—on 20% of the participants. Just not on Harry.

“What are you going to _do_ , if not—” said Ron, but Hermione interrupted.

“Andrew got married, did you hear?”

Harry expected to feel more tense at the news. More protective. That was one of the symptoms, he had read, but he hadn’t noticed it yet. He barely thought about any of the people he had had sex with, and there were a lot of them, post-LA.

The only person he thought of in the way the books said he would—obsessively, aggressively—was Draco Malfoy. Harry thought this was probably because he was the last person he’d had sex with before he was turned, and also because he was basically responsible. Harry would never have been at that drop if it hadn’t been for Malfoy’s information.

“Married?” he said. “And who’s the lucky spouse? Amazing that he managed to find someone who doesn’t mind having their dick described in detail to _Witch Weekly_.”

Ron made a low growling sound.

“I always hated him,” he said. “Remember, Hermione? The first time I met him, I said he was a twat.”

Hermione sighed.

“He wasn’t a twat. That was why it was so horrible,” she said.

Harry and Andrew had dated for six months. Six months, it turned out, had been long enough for Harry to fall in love, and for Andrew to give an intensive exclusive interview about Harry, Harry’s genitals, Harry’s insecurities, and Harry’s lingering war trauma.

A week after the break-up, Harry had spotted Draco Malfoy in a supermarket. It had felt like fate: like Harry couldn’t possibly trust anyone he hadn’t known before the war, and now here Malfoy was, gorgeous and quiet and smiling.

And for a moment—well, for the duration—it had felt as if maybe everything were clicking into place. Harry had by that time figured out that a good proportion of his fascination with Malfoy in school had been about wanting to tug his silvery hair, to get close to his smart mouth. In bed, it seemed as if Malfoy was admitting to having felt exactly the same. And they had been through the same things, they understood each other, or Harry had briefly thought they did, and it had occurred to Harry, as he took Malfoy’s lovely face in his hands, as Malfoy touched Harry’s chest, so gently—it had occurred to him that maybe this was a coming home, an ending. A rest, after so many years of hunting.

But of course, Malfoy was only doing his own version of what Andrew had done. Using him, although Harry wasn’t sure how. Fooling him into thinking he was one thing, and turning out to be the same selfish bully he had always been. Harry didn’t know why he had expected anything different.

He didn’t date, anymore. He went to Muggle nightclubs and had one-night stands.

“Do you remember Zacharias Smith?” asked Hermione. Harry laughed.

“You’re joking. Andrew married _Smith_?”

“Match made in heaven,” said Ron. “Pair of prats.”

“They’ll get a divorce in two years. Just watch,” said Harry. He opened his fridge and looked inside, just to give his hands something to do. “Don’t you think,” he said. “Hermione.”

Hermione smiled.

“I think they deserve each other.”

***

It was good to be back in England. He had missed clouds, and decent chocolate, and being able to order tea at a coffee shop without having to patiently walk the barista through the process.

Within three days, he was restless. It wasn’t new, the restlessness, he had always hated doing nothing, but it had got more pronounced since the bite. He had found that sex seemed to temporarily stop his brain from turning itself inside out. And of course, it was the only way to calm the constant ache in his muscles. His body felt as if he had been trapped on a long haul flight for days, no matter how much exercise he did.

He had never been clubbing in Britain. It was different; much more formal, somehow. He had to Confund the bouncer to be let in, a single man in jeans. Unlike in LA, all the girls wore heels and full faces of makeup. Harry stood on the dance floor and let the music pound through him, beating in his blood.

She found him out. The blue-haired girl. She was younger than Harry, no older than eighteen or nineteen, Harry would have guessed, although it was hard to tell in the low club lighting. She had a nose piercing and rings all up her ears and she came to him as if he had ordered her there, eyes hard and determined. He could feel it coming off her in waves, her availability. It wasn’t a smell, exactly, it wasn’t as if being part wolf meant he could sniff out people’s arousal—it was more subtle than that. He could _feel_ it. _I know you want me_ , she seemed to say. _You can have me_.

She was painfully beautiful. She smirked slightly as she put her hands on his chest. He pulled her close, began to sway her to the music. She stretched up her graceful neck, rested her nose against his chin.

Then she was ripped out his grasp, and Malfoy stood, incandescent with rage. He was eerily lovely in the flashing lights.

“Stay away from her,” he shouted at Harry. Harry could barely make out the words through the music. Malfoy had his hand tight on the blue-haired girl’s upper arm, and Harry realised she was his girlfriend with a whirl, a wave of feelings—anger and outrage and jealousy and resentment, and beyond that, like hope at the bottom of Pandora’s box, came joy. The joy that Malfoy’s girlfriend had tried to cheat on him with Harry.

“Sorry she likes me more than you,” said Harry, but he doubted whether Draco heard him. He cast Harry a look of deep disdain, then pulled the girl off the dance floor, out of sight.

Harry kept laughing for a while after Malfoy and his girlfriend had left, but he was conscious of something unpleasant growing in his chest. The idea of Malfoy having a girlfriend. The knowledge scraped at his heart, bitterly unfair.

Andrew, happily married. Malfoy, dating some beautiful girl. All these shitty people, finding each other, exorcising their loneliness. And Harry stood alone in a Muggle night club, dreading the full moon.

* * *

Draco apparated them back to their flat, even though you weren’t supposed to do that with minors, technically. He let go of her the moment they arrived in their kitchen.

“Adelaide. What the _fuck_.”

She crossed her arms.

“My body, my rules. _You_ said that. And then you cockblocked me.”

“One rule! No one more than a year older than you! Potter is _my age!_ ”

“And he’s famous! And he wanted me! You’re just fucking jealous and sad because no one ever wants to sleep with you, it’s pathetic!”

Draco stepped back, felt the countertop with his fingers. He tried to shield his face, but he knew he hadn’t succeeded, because Adelaide bit her lip and tilted her head down.

There was a long silence while Draco tried to think what to say. He had been furious when he saw Potter holding Adelaide, the way he was always furious about Adelaide—not only was Potter too old, but he had every societal and economic advantage, the dynamics would have rendered Adelaide essentially powerless, and Draco hated that. But there had been something else, too, some uprooting of his heart, as he watched Potter hold someone else, look at someone else, and remembered what that had been like. How worthy he had felt, for an hour. How worthless, afterwards.

It was embarrassing that he still wasn’t over it.

“You’re too young to go clubbing,” he said. “How did you even get in? You have to be eighteen.”

Adelaide gave him a scornful look.

“Yes, and no one would ever _dream_ of letting a pretty underage girl into a club. _Everyone_ goes clubbing at fifteen.”

“I didn’t,” said Draco.

“That’s because you were at nerdy wizard school,” said Adelaide. Their social worker had advised against sending Adelaide to Hogwarts. Said she would stand out too much as a new fourth year student, particularly one who had been through as much as Adelaide had. So Adelaide went to a Muggle state school, and Draco tutored her in the evenings, convinced he was failing her.

“So you’re telling me that Tasha and Fiona and Ellie all go off clubbing by themselves, trying to sleep with twenty-two-year-olds?” he asked.

Adelaide looked caught out.

“Well, they’re just immature,” she said. Draco laughed unhappily. “They only want to dance.”

“Unlike you,” he said. Adelaide stuck out her chin, and a horrible thought occurred to Draco. “Did Potter—did he know how old you were?”

“Of course not,” said Adelaide. “They never want to do anything, if you tell them that.”

“What a tragedy,” murmured Draco. “Have you been drinking?”

“No,” lied Adelaide. Draco sighed.

“Sit down,” he said.

“Are you done shouting at me?”

“For the moment,” said Draco. Adelaide clunked over to the table. Her high-heels were heavy. Draco had bought them for her when she got a 95% on her English exam. They had worked so hard for that exam together, and then she had taken him to Debenhams and tried on a thousand pairs of shoes before settling on these. She had thrown her arms around his neck and said, “I _love_ you!” when he handed her the bag to carry.

He made a full English breakfast. For once, she didn’t complain that it was fattening when he gave it to her, just tucked in, eating in neat, graceful bites. Tertius had taught her perfect table manners.

Draco watched her eat and wondered if this was payback for what a little shit he had been when he was fifteen. He might have believed it, if she had merely been nasty to him, but that wasn’t the worst thing about Adelaide. The worst thing was how _constantly_ he was scared for her.

She put her knife and fork neatly on her plate.

“Fiona fancies you,” she said. She looked up at him with soft, apologetic eyes. Draco couldn’t quite meet them.

“Is that your way of saying sorry for calling me pathetic?” he asked.

“You only _think_ you’re pathetic. You’re not actually,” she said.

“You flatterer, you.”

She pushed her plate forward, resting her arms on the table, fiddling with her bangles. Draco suspected she had shoplifted them.

“How did you find me, anyway?” she asked.

“Would you believe that I was at that club myself?”

When Adelaide slept over with people he trusted, as she had told him she was that night, Draco went out to clubs and bars. People touched him there, kissed him, sometimes. Once, he had gone home with a man, but when they arrived at his flat Draco had abruptly understood he couldn’t go through with it, and left, and never tried again. But he still went out, because Muggle girls smiled at him, and Muggle boys danced with him, and for those meagre hours he felt young again.

Adelaide looked at him with interest.

“Draco! Have you been having _fun?_ Careful, the war dead will come and get you if you laugh without the shadows of the past in your haunted eyes!”

Draco smiled and sent her plate to the sink with a flick of his wand.

“Yes, all right,” he said. “I think you have enough fun for the both of us.”

“Fun,” she said, her expression changing. “Is that what you think I’m having.”

Draco held his hand out across the table. She took it.

“Please don’t scare me like that,” he said, quietly.

“As if _Harry Potter_ would have hurt me,” she said. “He’s what, six, seven years older than me? Thirty-six-year-olds date thirty-year-olds all the time.”

“I know it doesn’t feel weird to you. But I promise you, it _should_ feel weird to the twenty-two-year-old. Anyone who’s all right with that kind of power dynamic is bad news.”

“I’m mature for my age,” said Adelaide. “You know I am.”

“We had an agreement. No one more than a year older than you. You swore.”

Adelaide took her hand out of his.

“Okay, fine, I’m sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. Then, more slowly, more truthful: “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I just want you to be happy,” said Draco.

“Ha,” said Adelaide. “Happy’s for stupid people.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot, we’re tortured artists,” said Draco.

“Suffering for our Art,” said Adelaide.

Draco checked the cheerful clock above the stove.

“It’s late,” he said.

“It’s Friday,” countered Adelaide. “Let’s watch something.”

Draco knew that if he were a good parental figure, he would send her to her room, her ears ringing with his admonishments. But he wasn’t any good: look at her. He was too lonely and fucked up to do anything but love her.

“I’m not watching _Coyote Ugly_ again,” he said.

“Oh, come _on!”_

“No. You’re the one who gave me a heart attack tonight. I get to pick the film. And it’s _Gladiator_.”

“Ugh. Fine. Can we get more wine?”

Draco rubbed his eyes.

“I’m going to Hell,” he said. It was a new concept, one he had discovered while helping her with a religion essay, and it had had a huge and wholly awful impact on his happiness. “Yes. White’s already open in the fridge.”

She curled up next to him, her blue head resting on his shoulder, shouting at the screen and yelping at the violence. She only drank half her glass of wine. She never drank much around him. He wished she would, wished she’d go get smashed with her friends, instead of drinking alone in her room, late at night.

Draco’s therapist said he could only control himself, that he could only do his best. Draco thought his therapist wasn’t all that intelligent. He only went because Adelaide refused to go to hers if he wasn’t also seeing someone.

She fell asleep, as she always did, in the middle of the most climactic scene, her head lolling into Draco. He watched the rest of the film, then carried her to her bedroom. Took off her shoes, her bangles, the one spiky earring that hurt her when she slept on it. She woke up when he tucked the duvet under her chin.

“Love you,” she said.

“Go back to sleep,” said Draco, and she did, a peaceful look settling over her sad, beautiful face.

***

Draco hated his boss, and his boss hated him. Mr Dinsmore suffered from the kind of insecurity that masks itself imperfectly with arrogance, and there was perhaps no better way for Mr Dinsmore to show that he was a brilliant Potions master than by telling anyone who would listen that Draco was abysmally shit. “Everyone who would listen” was the customers, and the shop girl, Cynthia. Draco liked Cynthia as much as he disliked Mr Dinsmore. Cynthia had a bland sort of face, and listened to Mr Dinsmore’s anti-Draco screeds with the heavy-lidded impassiveness of a cow being read a poem.

Probably the real reason Mr Dinsmore hated Draco so much was that Draco was better than him at his job. Within about three months of working at _Dinsmore’s Potion Emporium_ , Draco was making all the complex orders. He stayed in the back room as much as possible, where no one bothered him. Cynthia would come and get him at lunch, in her bland way, “ _Sandwich time?”_ and sometimes Mr Dinsmore would lean against the doorframe and tell him he was doing it wrong, that he was lucky he had a job at all, that he had a bad attitude. But apart from that, Draco was blissfully alone, lost in his work. It was the only time he ever felt as if he were good for something.

“Draco,” said Mr Dinsmore. “There’s a new potion you need to make. I don’t have the time.”

 _My arse,_ thought Draco. It was probably just too difficult for him. But he kept his mouth shut (that was something Tertius had taught him: when to be quiet, which, depressingly, was always) and waited.

“It’s some sort of Californian werewolf potion,” said Mr Dinsmore, handing him a piece of parchment with the instructions on it. It looked horribly complicated. Draco’s heart swelled. It had been a long time since he had been challenged.

“You look chipper,” said Adelaide, that evening. She was still in her school uniform, her hair neatly glamoured brown. Draco tapped her head with his wand, and the glamour lifted.

“New werewolf potion,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. If taken weekly, it looks as if it should stop the drinker from transforming more than twice a year.”

“Nerd,” said Adelaide, kicking off her shoes and dropping her rucksack on the kitchen table. “We read a good short story in English, you should look at it.” She pulled it out and gave it to him. It was by someone named Guy de Maupassant. He sat at the table and read while Adelaide made tea. She tossed him an apple, and he caught it without looking up.

“Everything reads better with an apple,” she said.

“Adelaide. Is this a story about a person making a mistake in their youth and it ruining the rest of their life?”

Adelaide froze.

“Uh. Yes?”

Draco flung the story back at her.

“Yeah, I’m not reading that,” he said. Adelaide bounced up and down on her toes.

“Sorry-sorry-sorry! I forgot!” she said. She looked like a toddler desperate for the loo.

“Charms today,” said Draco. “Did you practice the Cheering Charms?”

“Have I ruined your day?”

“Week,” said Draco.

“Life, really,” said Adelaide, but the joke didn’t hit right. Draco nudged her leg with his toe.

“Adelaide. Stop spiralling. Cheering Charms; did you practice?”

“Sorry. Yes. Yes, I did practice. And I did the reading.” She took a strand of her hair and chewed on it for a moment. “I should have thought. I know that kind of thing makes you sad. The story, I mean.”

“It didn’t make me sad,” said Draco.

“It might have done,” said Adelaide.

“It didn’t. Now sit down and focus.”

Adelaide took off her school blazer, sank into the seat opposite him, and rummaged around in her rucksack for her wand.

“Can I make dinner tonight?” she asked, putting the wand and a notebook on the kitchen table.

“Only if you get this right, and you do your other homework.”

“Please? There’s a new recipe that I—”

“Then you’d better focus on Charms, then, hadn’t you?”

It frustrated Draco, how difficult it was to get Adelaide interested in magic. She treated it like some favour she was doing him, and seemed to think the whole thing was deeply uncool.

She almost never talked about her life before Tertius, but he understood that her father, a wizard, had walked out on her Muggle mother without ever telling her about magic. The mother had left Adelaide with some friends when Adelaide was ten and never returned. From there, Adelaide was passed around from family to family, no one wanting her—until Tertius.

“He rescued me,” she had told Draco, once.

“I know,” Draco had answered. “Me, too.”

Draco knew _why_ she didn’t like magic. She was behind, so behind she would never catch up at this rate, and Adelaide hated not being good at things. At school, she was considered an Oxbridge candidate. At home, she could see that she was working from second year textbooks.

Around eight, Tasha, Fiona and Ellie came over. It still brought Draco a thrill of smug pleasure, that they were allowed over. None of their parents had been keen on him at first. But Draco had gone to every obnoxious parent event and smiled and brought terrible, badly iced cupcakes until he had finally earned their trust.

The girls crowded into the flat, shedding coats and bags and shoes, opening cupboards, poking into the fridge.

“Hi Draco,” said Fiona, sidling over.

“Ellie got a detention today because Mr Flanders is _sexist_ ,” said Tasha.

“He called Jane Austen chicklit. That’s sexist,” said Ellie.

“Hmm,” said Draco. “What did you call him in return?”

“A chauvinistic pig,” said Ellie. She had retrieved a plastic box of grapes from the fridge and was picking through to find the good ones.

“You went straight for the big guns,” said Draco.

“Stop touching all the grapes, Ellie. That’s disgusting,” said Adelaide.

“They’re all manky! Draco,” Ellie looked up and smiled, her wheedling _I want something_ expression. “Is there any chocolate? Is there, is there, is there?”

Draco sighed.

“I’ll go to the shops,” he said. He looked at Adelaide. “Be good?”

“When am I not?” asked Adelaide.

He went to bed before them, their music and laughter bleeding through the walls. It was his favourite sound to fall asleep to: Adelaide, safe and happy and near.

***

The potion was tricky, and he had to get some weird ingredients in from the unfriendly lady who ran the potion supply shop in Richmond, but three days later, Draco had done it. He was quietly thrilled; he had thought for a moment that he might fail. Mr Dinsmore uncorked it, smelled it, and handed it back to Draco with a sour look.

“Fine. Deliver it today, it’s already late. He was supposed to get it yesterday,” he said, and handed Draco an address on a piece of paper.

Draco didn’t realise it was Potter’s house until he was standing on the doorstep, ringing the bell. He didn’t have time to do more than think _Oh, this is not—_ before the door was opening and Potter was there.

Draco held out the potion.

“Potion,” he said, stupidly.

Potter looked as displeased as Draco felt.

“You’re not Dinsmore,” he said.

“I work for him,” said Draco. A memory flashed; Potter sneering at him, Potter pushing him roughly into a chair, it hurting because Draco was still sore from—and then a different memory, of Potter above him, the veins in his arms, the look on his face. Draco felt his cheeks grow hot.

“Well. Come in,” said Potter. He disappeared into the house, and Draco followed after him, into a grim little sitting room. There was a tapestry on the wall that Draco recognised.

“Oh,” he said. “This is the Black house.”

“It’s mine,” said Potter, practically snarling, as if Draco had said “I have assembled an army of ten thousand men, and I am here to reclaim my ancestral home!”

“I know,” said Draco. “Chill, Potter.”

It never worked on him when Adelaide told him to chill, and certainly didn’t work on Potter. His wand was suddenly in Draco’s face.

“Potter! What the fuck!”

“You need to sign a secrecy contract, like Dinsmore,” said Potter. His wand dug into Draco’s neck.

“Jesus, fine! Don’t fucking cut me open again!” said Draco, as if he wasn’t frightened.

Potter seemed slightly taken aback. He lowered his wand, looking almost sheepish, then shoved a piece of parchment forward on the coffee table. Draco let himself pretend to read it for a few seconds while his heart rate lowered. Fucking _Potter_.

Once he could no longer feel his pulse in his throat, Draco focused on the parchment and read it carefully. He would not be able to tell anyone he had even seen Potter, let alone what he had sold him. Draco signed it, still not understanding. Then his eye fell on the potion that he still had in his hand, and he laughed.

“Oh,” he said. “You’re a werewolf. God, you weren’t special enough, were you?”

Potter looked at him with something close to loathing. Draco remembered how tender he had been, how slowly he’d worked Draco open, how it had still hurt, how he’d not wanted to say anything because he wanted to impress Potter. To keep Potter looking at him like he had that day, kind and sympathetic.

“It was on your tip, Malfoy, so thanks for that,” said Potter. “Royally fucked up my life, you’ll be glad to know.”

“Oh, good, my plan succeeded,” said Draco. “My grand plan to turn you into a werewolf. Finally! My ambitions have been reached!”

They were standing six inches apart. Potter looked furious. Draco didn’t know much about werewolves; he’d had a bit of a crush on Lupin in third year, but obviously he’d never told anyone about that, and had done his best to repress it at the time. Potter didn’t seem any different from how he’d always been: strong and lethal and too good looking by half.

“You’re so funny, Malfoy,” said Potter. “Always so funny. With your funny little bigotry and your witty little murder attempts and your hilarious betrayals—”

“Shut up,” said Draco, shoving at him. “You don’t know me.”

“Don’t _touch_ me,” said Potter, grabbing Draco’s wrists, and terror surged up in Draco, metallic and paralysing. Tertius had taken his wrists like that, had dragged him, screaming, to the kitchen door, had—

Potter let go of him. His anger seemed tinged with confusion, now. Draco was feeling his right hand with his left— a nervous tick, checking it was all right. He forced himself to stop. Potter wasn’t Tertius. It would be a fair fight, at least, if it came to that.

The silence between them was loud with their breaths, and to stop thinking of Tertius, Draco fixated on Potter’s exquisitely carved jaw. Draco had kissed it, that time, all along the sharp ridge, and it hadn’t been enough, not nearly. Draco stared at it, trying to recover from the adrenaline that had shot through him, and Potter took a small step forward. When he spoke his voice was more human, as if some of his anger had been shaken away.

“If you tell a soul I’ve been bitten, so help me God, Malfoy, I’ll—”

“I signed the bloody contract,” said Draco, turning from him, but Potter was closer than he had realised, and Draco knocked into his firm chest. Potter’s other hand caught him at the waist, and then—

Draco wasn’t sure how it happened, who had initiated, but they were kissing, furiously, and Potter pushed him onto the sofa and climbed on top of him and kissed him harder.

It was definitely hot. It was also a bit horrible, because Potter seemed so angry still, and Draco didn’t feel angry at all anymore, just desperate, just hopeful in that hopeless way, as if there was some chance that if Draco kissed Potter well enough, Potter would like him again.

 _Gross_ , he could imagine Adelaide telling him. _Have some self-respect_.

This time, Potter didn’t lead him to his bedroom.

“Accio lube,” he said.

“Wait,” said Draco. They had, somehow, got mostly naked. Draco wasn’t even sure how that had happened, although he knew he had torn most of Potter’s clothes off in a frenzy of lust, so that was probably a clue.

“What?” asked Potter. Black eyes with a sliver of green around the edge. His hair looked as it always did; perennial sex hair, it was truly enviable. The jar of lube came whistling into the room, and Potter caught it, plucked it out of the air like it was nothing.

“I’m not doing that again,” said Draco. Potter frowned.

“Why? You liked it last time.”

“Well, I’m not doing it this time. Why don’t _you_ —”

Potter’s expression was hard.

“I’m not letting _you,_ ” he said.

“Oh, of course it’s fine for you to fuck me, but God forbid the Chosen One’s manliness should be impugned!”

“It’s not about manliness, you prat, it’s about trust!”

They were both sitting up now. Draco was still so hard. Potter shirtless was truly a sight to behold.

“Fine,” said Draco. “Lie down. Don’t touch my hair.”

Potter looked confused.

“What?”

“Lie down,” said Draco again. “Don’t touch my hair.”

“I—okay,” said Potter, and lay back on the sofa, following Draco with his eyes as Draco bent down.

Draco had never done it before, and he intended to show how careless he was, how this was just sex to him also, or maybe even just anger. But unfortunately, sucking Potter’s dick turned out to be a distinctly intimate thing, and Draco couldn’t help but do it slowly, carefully, as if it mattered to him. Which, obviously, it did.

Potter didn’t touch him. Draco had told him not to because he had gel in his hair, and he was worried that Potter would be repulsed by it. Still, there was something miserable about swallowing without a grateful touch, an acknowledgement.

He sat up. He thought Potter should reciprocate, and thus probably would, because he was Potter and tended to do his duty. But in case he wasn’t going to—Draco didn’t want to presume—Draco reached for his trousers. Potter knocked them out of his grasp and pushed Draco back against the cushions. He didn’t use his mouth, just his hand. Draco came embarrassingly quickly.

They were still for a moment, not looking at each other. Then Potter just _waved his hand_ and the mess disappeared.

“What on earth,” said Draco. Potter shrugged, as if it was no big deal. It was so hot that if things had been different, Draco would have jumped on him and gone again. Instead, he dressed quickly, not saying a word. Potter lay naked on the sofa, watching him.

Draco’s gaze fell on the potion on the coffee table, and he closed his eyes in horror.

“You…” he said. He took a breath. “You need to pay me. For the potion.”

Potter laughed unpleasantly and Summoned a small bag of gold. He tossed it at Draco, who pocketed it and made to go, ashamed and confused and turned on, still.

“That girl at the club,” said Potter, and Draco stopped, a shiver stealing over his skin.

“Adelaide,” he said. How could he have been so stupid? Of course Potter knew that Draco was Adelaide’s guardian. Of course he would be worried for Adelaide’s welfare, would assume that Draco wasn’t responsible enough to care for her. Would _see_ that Draco wasn’t responsible enough to care for her. He’d probably been at that club as a _test_.

“Nice girl,” said Potter, with a laugh.

“She doesn’t want for anything,” said Draco. Potter made a disbelieving sound, but didn’t speak. Draco waited another few seconds at the door, then left.


	3. Chapter 3

Harry took a shower to wash away the feel of Malfoy. As he lathered himself up, he noticed that his body didn’t hurt. He flexed his arms, his feet. Nothing. No ache. It was gone. He hadn’t been so pain free since before the bite.

Malfoy had been _terrified_ when Harry touched him in anger. Harry knew quite well that in school, before he had been bitten, Malfoy would have fought back. He hadn’t ever scared Malfoy, at school—even after Sectumsempra, Malfoy had regarded him only with loathing, never fear. It was very clear what had changed: Harry. Newly bitten, newly dangerous.

Harry made the shower hotter, almost scalding.

He went to a nightclub, picked up a guy, took him home, fucked him, let him stay the night. Tried not to think about Malfoy, with his impossible mouth and his sharp, glittering eyes, and his girlfriend he was cheating on. There was always some new way for him to be a shit, apparently. Harry had to give him that: when it came to being awful, Malfoy didn’t pen himself in. He branched out, found new ways to hurt people all the time.

Harry kept thinking back to that afternoon after the market, before he had realised Malfoy worked for Tertius. He didn’t understand how someone like Malfoy could have given such a complete impression of—Harry wasn’t sure what of.

That first time had felt like a tipping point. Like he and Malfoy had been circling something for years, and in bed had kissed almost to the edge of it. One more time like that, Harry thought, and they would have toppled over.

He made the guy he’d fucked some toast, and sent him on his way.

When Draco got home, he paused before unlocking the door. He needed to formulate his face. The last thing he wanted was for Adelaide to know something was wrong. Not that he would be able to tell her, anyway, the contract would bind his tongue, but all the same, he was ashamed of himself. He would hate for Adelaide to let someone treat her that way. He felt that he was a pretty poor example of self-respect. He also knew that he would do it again, given the chance.

But when he got inside the flat, Adelaide’s door was closed, and he could hear her crying. He knocked. She didn’t answer, so he cracked the door open.

“Go away!”

“Adelaide…”

“Go _away!”_ she screamed, and threw her shoes at him.

He made a chamomile tea, chopped up an apple, put a scoop of Nutella on the side. If someone had hurt her… He fumbled the knife.

He brought the tea and the snack to her room. She lay face down on the bed, her hair still brown from when he’d glamoured it that morning. He touched it gently with his wand and it went blue.

“Your roots are showing,” he said. She sobbed harder, but didn’t tell him to go. He sat on the edge of the bed, put one hand on her back. “I brought you tea.”

“Thanks,” she said, through her tears, then she sat up and poured herself into his lap. He pulled her up, tucked her head into his shoulder, rocked her, and waited.

For a long time, she just cried. Then, she buried her face deeper into his shoulder.

“The boys…” she said. Draco tightened his grip around her. “… the boys only like me because I put out!”

Draco kissed the top of her head.

“Bullshit,” he said.

“Camilla said—”

“Oh, fuck Camilla,” said Draco. “That girl’s jealous of you.”

“But it wasn’t just…” she was wracked by a fresh wave of sobs. “It wasn’t just her!”

“Who else? Do you need me to beat someone up? I will,” said Draco, quite seriously. He could afford to be serious, because he knew she would never ask him to do it.

“Tom Scuppers texted me asking how much I would _charge_ ,” wept Adelaide.

“I hope you told him he couldn’t afford you,” said Draco.

“They think I’m a whore!”

“It’s none of their business what you do with your body,” said Draco. His voice sounded too fierce. He tried to calm himself. “It’s no one’s business. It’s _yours_.”

“If… if they knew…” she said. “Draco, who’s ever going to want me?”

Draco pressed his lips against her scalp. He was so angry, so helpless. He wished he had stabbed Tertius in the night, except that would have been too quick.

“ _I_ want you,” he said. Adelaide sobbed a laugh.

“Great,” she said. “Let’s get married.”

Draco sighed.

“I’m sorry you’ve had a shit day,” he said. “It will get better. I promise.”

Adelaide gave another hiccoughy laugh.

“Like it did for you?”

Draco paused.

“Yes,” he said.

“Please. Your life’s a slow-motion train crash,” she said. “Some light at the end of the fucking tunnel _you_ are.”

Draco didn’t move. His therapist had told him that when Adelaide pushed him away he shouldn’t let her. But it was hard, because her words had twisted under his ribs.

“I’m happier now than I was,” he said.

“That’s most depressing fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” said Adelaide. Draco did move away then, coward that he was. He shifted her gently off his lap and passed her the cup of tea. She said _thank you_ without looking at him.

“You know that I…” he stumbled. It wasn’t something they had ever really said, in his family. “You know that I—and I think you’re brilliant.”

She took a sip of her tea, then put the mug carefully back on the bedside table.

“I’m not marriage material,” she said.

“You’re fifteen.”

“That’s not the—I’m never going to be marriage material. No one will ever want to keep me. I’m just… fun. For a little bit. Until you meet the real girl, the nice one, the one who never seduced a fifty-year-old when she was a child.”

“You didn’t seduce him,” said Draco.

“You weren’t _there_ ,” spat Adelaide. She sat sideways on the bed, her head in her hands.

“I’m calling your therapist,” said Draco. “We’ll see if she can fit you in this evening.”

“Okay,” said Adelaide weakly.

“And if you tell me where Tom Scuppers lives I’ll go Bat-Bogey him.”

Adelaide laughed and cast him a grateful look.

“You won’t though, will you?” she said. “You won’t contact the school or anything?”

Draco stretched the crooked fingers on his right hand. He couldn’t make a fist with it.

“I hate for there to be no consequences,” he said.

“Please, Draco. Please don’t say anything.”

“I’m going to Hell,” said Draco bleakly. He thought about it, on the nights when Adelaide slept over at Fiona’s and the flat was quiet. Hell: an eternity of fire. The Room of Requirement, waiting for him. “All right. I won’t say anything.”

“Thank you,” said Adelaide. Then, again, serious, her hand reaching for his. “Thank you.” Draco squeezed.

“I… Look,” he said. “I know you’re going to find this embarrassing. But…”

“Don’t,” said Adelaide.

“You’re the best person I’ve ever known,” said Draco. “You’re smart and kind and beautiful.”

Adelaide had gone very still, listening.

“You’re going to be just fine. None of that stuff that happened to you, none of it can stop you.” He swallowed. “It wasn’t your fault, and that’s a pretty good position to be in. Innocence.”

“You think I’m _innocent_? Do you want me to tell you how many people I’ve slept with?”

“You’re innocent,” said Draco. He let go of her hand, tried to smile. “I would know.”

Her mascara was clumped and wet. She touched his arm.

“So are you,” she said.

“Ah,” said Draco. “No. But I am an expert on the subject of guilt and innocence, and you can trust my judgment.”

Something crossed her face, a strange expression that he caught there sometimes and could not translate. She stood and took the mug and untouched plate of apples.

“I want to dye my hair pink,” she said. Draco tilted his head, considering her.

“You’ve never done pink, have you? I’ll make up the potion,” he said.

She bit her lip, then looked at him, her face sad and truthful.

“You’re the best,” she said.

* * *

By the fourth day, the pain started to come back. On the fifth day, Harry ran eight miles, came back to the house dripping with sweat, still aching. And there was something more, as well, like a memory throbbing in his head, the memory of Malfoy, cold and irritable, telling him to lie back and not touch him. Malfoy refusing to let Harry have sex with him—why? Had it been so bad for him the last time? Because for Harry, it had, unfortunately, been the best sex of his life, the experience that came back to him in the shower when it had been too long since he’d slept with someone.

It was probably the whole wolf thing. That was why he kept thinking about Malfoy, about the different ways he’d been. He wondered what motive Malfoy could possibly have for wanting to hook up with him. He imagined the _Witch Weekly_ interview Malfoy would give and felt his skin crawl with embarrassment.

“Aren’t you going to get a job?” asked Ginny, when she came over. Harry had taken up the piano in Los Angeles, and didn’t answer, just kept tootling his fingers up and down the keys. Ginny leant against the piano. “No? Just going to sulk for a decade or two?”

Harry started playing Brahms.

“I genuinely don’t understand how you can be this prejudiced against yourself when you never gave two hoots about other people’s Blood Status,” said Ginny.

“I’m not prejudiced,” said Harry.

“You’re giving a pretty good impression of it,” said Ginny. “It’s like third-year Malfoy, in here.”

Harry’s fingers fumbled on the keys, but he managed to gloss over it.

“I’m nothing like Malfoy,” he said, but now all he could think of was Malfoy bending over him, slow and gentle on the sofa—completely breaking with all that came before. Sweet and careful. And then the expression on his face when he was done; or more precisely, the lack of expression. What was his _game?_

“I think you’re using the whole werewolf thing as an excuse for quitting the Aurors,” said Ginny.

“I haven’t thought about it,” said Harry.

Ginny seemed to give up on him, then. She started talking about George’s new girlfriend, and Harry relaxed a little, even stopped playing the piano, eventually.

By the time Malfoy showed up with his potion for Harry’s next weekly dose, Harry was a mess of tumbled feelings. But the one that was foremost was pain, and Malfoy was a cure.

Harry pulled him inside by the lapels, shut the door behind him, pressed Malfoy up against the wood, and kissed him. Malfoy was stiff for an instant, then kissed back just as hungrily, as if he, too, hadn’t been able to think of anything else all week.

“I owe you,” said Harry. Malfoy frowned.

“You…?”

Harry dropped to his knees.

“Oh,” said Malfoy. “Yes. You do.”

But afterwards, Malfoy returned the favour; Harry sprawled out on the stairs, Malfoy on his knees before him, and Harry wanted to touch him so badly that he had to hold on to the bannisters to stop himself.

When he was done, Malfoy lifted his face. His eyes were cold.

“You didn’t have to do that,” said Harry, groggy with the combined aftershocks of pleasure and relief from pain. His muscles had stopped hurting the moment Malfoy touched him. “If you didn’t want to.”

Malfoy wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood, straightening his clothes, although they looked perfectly ordered to Harry. Harry did up his trousers and tried to remember if the jumper he was wearing had holes under the armpit.

“I wanted to,” said Malfoy. Maybe he did, thought Harry. Maybe he felt guilty about cheating on Adelaide, and that was why his face was like that, so hard and pained.

Malfoy felt around in his pocket and withdrew the potion bottle, handed it to Harry.

“Did you have any unforeseen side-effects?” he asked.

“No,” said Harry. “It felt just the same as it did in LA. Dinsmore did a good job.”

Malfoy laughed.

“Dinsmore didn’t make it,” he said.

“He didn’t?”

“Dinsmore can barely make a Sleeping Draught,” said Malfoy. Harry frowned.

“But he’s the best Potions master in the UK. His shop was the only place that could make it. I asked around,” he said. Malfoy’s face flashed with happiness, just for a moment.

“I make all the potions,” he said. “All the hard ones, anyway.”

Harry checked the instinct to mock him for boasting. He wasn’t sure why, it was typical of Malfoy to show off about the smallest thing, and that had always irritated Harry. But there was something about the way he had shut away his happiness so quickly that made Harry feel strange. Uncomfortable.

“Well, good job,” said Harry. Malfoy blinked, then said, “thank you,” as if he resented having to say it. He was hovering by the door.

“See you next week, then,” said Harry. Malfoy pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Money, Potter,” he said.

“Oh,” said Harry, and handed over the gold. Malfoy swallowed as he took it.

“This is… sordid,” he said.

“Jesus,” said Harry. “Don’t make it weird.”

Malfoy laughed, weighing the money in his hand. He looked, for a second, as if he was about to start shouting. But he just put the money in his pocket and turned to go.

“Malfoy,” said Harry. Malfoy leant his forehead on the door, breathed out.

“What,” he said.

“If you tell anyone about this, I’ll deny it,” said Harry.

“Why,” Malfoy banged his head gently on the door, once, “on earth would I ever _tell_ anyone?”

That night, luxuriating in the painlessness, Harry realised that Malfoy cheating on his girlfriend was probably a rare instance of Malfoy’s cruelty working out in Harry’s favour. It lessened his incentive to sell Harry out to the papers. The secrecy contract made very little difference to Harry’s paranoia. Malfoy was plenty clever enough to work out how to break it, if he decided he wanted to.

Harry had never been able to shake off the betrayal, after Andrew. The feeling that everyone who got close to him would use him. Hermione said it wasn’t about Andrew at all, but about Dumbledore. She was probably right, Harry didn’t know. He tried not to think about it.

* * *

“… and do you think this is a healthy addition to your life?” asked Draco’s therapist. His name was Kevin, and with every passing session, Draco grew more certain of his idiocy. Like now, for instance.

“No,” said Draco, staring at him. “Of course it’s not healthy. That’s what I’m telling you.”

“But you intend to continue sexual contact with Potter?” asked Kevin. He was a Muggle, he had no idea who Potter was. Draco had been surprised when he had been able to talk about Potter to Kevin, but he supposed it was a Muggle-born rights thing, that tongue binding contracts wouldn’t apply to therapists and priests.

“He probably won’t want to, next time,” said Draco. “It’s mental that he’s—I mean, he must be just desperate for a shag. It’s the only…”

Kevin waited until it was apparent that Draco wasn’t going to finish his thought before he spoke.

“Is it possible that Potter likes you back?” he asked.

“ _Back?_ ”

“Draco,” said Kevin, steepling his fingers. There were inspirational posters all over his office. _Dreams don’t work unless you do_ , and _Pain is real… but so is hope!_ Draco spent a good proportion of his sessions hating them, and Kevin, and the concept of therapy in its entirety.

“What,” said Draco.

“You’ve talked about Potter quite a lot in these sessions. And now he’s back in your life. I think we can accept that you like him.”

“I…” said Draco. He looked at the poster of a dog balancing a ball on his nose. _No one is the best at everything, but everyone’s the best at something!_ Draco frowned. “There’s no way that dog is the best at that. What, in the _world_? _That_ dog? Not a chance. There are professional clowns. They go to _clown school_. That poster’s offensive to clowns.”

“You’re deflecting, Draco,” said Kevin, who was the fucking worst.

“I want him to like me,” said Draco. “I’ve always wanted him to like me.”

“Does it feel like he likes you when you do sexual activities together?”

“Do you speak like that with your friends?” asked Draco. “ _‘Hallo chums, just got back from sexual activities with a hot babe?’”_

Kevin just watched him over his fingers.

“No,” said Draco, sinking into the couch and idly plucking at the stupid plastic plant on the side table. “No, obviously it doesn’t feel as if he likes me. It feels as if he despises me.”

“That must be hard for you. I know how you like to be liked,” said Kevin.

“You don’t like me,” said Draco.

“Of course I like you, Draco.”

“Fucking robot,” said Draco, then laughed. “Sorry. I’m spending too much time with teenagers. Sorry, that was rude.”

“You can be rude to me, Draco. There won’t be any repercussions, if you don’t behave well around me.”

Draco grimaced.

“I’m going to do it again. Hook up with him. There’s no way I won’t, it’s all I think about. He’s so attractive, it feels like, like a sickness or something, what I feel for him. It’s always been like that. Fuck. Even when I was twelve, it was like that. And now it’s just morphed, changed, so it’s—” Draco stopped. “Sorry. I’m rambling.”

Kevin sighed.

“There’s no rambling in therapy, Draco. I _want_ you to talk.”

“Right,” said Draco. “Well. Point is, I’m an embarrassment but the sex is good so I guess this is where we are, now. If Adelaide were sleeping with someone who loathed her I would…” he stopped.

“You would…” said Kevin.

“Let her do what she wants because she makes her own choices about her body,” said Draco gloomily. “But I’d hate it.” He winced. “I _do_ hate it. Just not as much as I like it. Time’s up, by the way. You should get a timer or something, I bet people take advantage of your leniency all the time. You could probably get a nicer office if you were stricter about that sort of thing.”

“I like my office,” said Kevin, mildly.

“Oh, yeah, of course. Who wouldn’t,” said Draco.

“See you in two weeks, Draco. Remember, you can call me if things with Potter are making you feel inadequate.”

Draco laughed.

Later, he thought back to what he had talked about in that session and was ashamed of himself, of his selfishness. He had barely mentioned Adelaide at all.

Adelaide locked herself in her bedroom, the music blaring. She had been cruel and sullen all evening. She hadn’t done her Transfiguration homework, and when Draco chided her, she said “You were a good student, weren’t you? Brilliant at magic? Why would I want to be like you? I’d kill myself if I had your life.” And Draco had blinked a few times, the way he always did when she said things like that, feeling as if something had just hit him in the head—and he would know—trying not to show how crumbling it was to be told all the worst things about yourself by someone you loved. He got back to the lesson, she stormed out and locked her bedroom door.

He tried to work on inorganic potion theory. A headache built in the back of his head. He never used to get headaches, before that day that he’d slept with Potter and Tertius had punished him for coming home late. He ignored the throbbing that seemed to spread from the crown of his head, and moved on to working on his pain potion formula. All the options on the market either caused grogginess or dependency, or both, so he couldn’t use them. He was trying to find some way to make a pain potion that truly had no side effects.

It was what Adelaide called his art. He designed potions for her all the time, like the hair dyes, and eye shadows that never smudged. He made her a perfume every year for her birthday, although that wasn’t really potions. Adelaide only wanted his cosmetic creations, which weren’t his favourite to make, but they had improved his technique. They had given him a focus on beauty, an understanding of how to make a potion elegant in its composition; clean. If only he could find some way to transfer that clarity to the pain elixir—if only his head would stop pulsing with thick throbs, like Tertius was still there, smashing him into a wall, forever—

Adelaide’s door opened, and she swaggered out. She wore ripped black fishnets and sky high heels and the smallest dress Draco had ever seen.

“I’m going out,” she said.

“No, you’re not. It’s a Wednesday,” said Draco.

“You can’t stop me, you’re not my boyfriend,” she said. Her speech was slurred.

“Yes, I can, and that’s not what a boyfriend’s for, by the way,” said Draco.

She sidled over to the table and leant up against it, sitting on his notebook, her thighs exposed. She ran one finger up his chest. He grabbed her hand and shoved it away.

“You’re drunk,” he said.

“And you’re hot,” she said. Draco edged his chair out, got up and went to stand by the counter. Adelaide tilted her head. “What? You called me beautiful the other day. I know you want me.”

“Adelaide. I _don’t._ Please don’t do this,” said Draco.

“I’m drunk, you’re lonely, what’s the problem?”

Draco hadn’t cried since sixth year. He was shocked to find tears stinging sharply at his eyes.

“You said you wanted me,” said Adelaide.

“That’s not what I meant,” said Draco. “You know that’s not what I meant. Don’t you? Please tell me you know.” His head hurt so badly. He wished there was an adult in the room he could turn to. His mother would have known what to do. He wished there was anyone, anyone at all, whom he could call, not for Adelaide for once, but for himself. For how awful it was to have failed her so completely.

Adelaide didn’t notice that anything was wrong. She tripped on her heels as she came towards him, and he caught her.

“Sit,” he said, and pushed her into a chair. “I’m making you food.”

“You’re a bad cook,” she said, and slumped forward on the table. She sang as Draco made pesto pasta. While the water boiled, he leant his head against the kitchen cabinet and breathed through the pain. It was getting worse, he was starting to feel nauseous.

“Fattening,” she said, when he gave it to her.

“Yeah? So’s whisky,” said Draco.

“But it’s much more fun,” she said, with a toothy smile.

“Not for me.”

“You’re cross,” she said, her mouth full of pasta.

“No,” said Draco.

“You never hit, no matter how cross you are,” she said.

Draco pressed his hand to the back of his head. It sometimes felt as if it had all started with violence, and could end with it, too. He fantasised about cracking his head open against the concrete pavement outside their flat, how good it would feel, how it would knock the pain right out of him.

“Eat,” said Draco.

“You’re the only person I’ve ever trusted,” said Adelaide. “Did you know that?”

“No,” said Draco. “That makes me sad.”

“I hate making you sad,” said Adelaide. She put down her fork and burped slightly. “scuse me. Do you regret taking me?”

“Never,” said Draco. “Not even once.”

“Why don’t you want to fuck me? Don’t you think I’m pretty?”

Draco put his face in his hands and shook, just shook. Adelaide carried on talking.

“I think green hair will look good on me but Fiona says it will make my skin look blotchy. What did you want to be when you were my age? I think I’d like to own a restaurant. Maybe. Or be a vet. Can we get a dog? Draco? Can we?”

“No,” Draco got out. It was hard to speak.

“Boo,” said Adelaide. “You’re so boring all the time.”

The light hurt his eyes.

“I wish you wouldn’t drink,” he said.

“You drink,” she said.

Draco tried to shake his head, but couldn’t. He stood.

“Come on. Let’s get you to bed,” he said.

“Okay,” she said, obedient as a child, and followed him to her bedroom. He had done it a thousand times, taken off her shoes and her bangles and her spiky earring, but he was scared of touching her, just then.

“Take off your shoes,” he said.

“Did you love Tertius? I loved him,” she said, sitting on the bed and holding one leg out expectantly.

“I don’t know,” said Draco, and undid the strap. She held out her other leg.

“I love you,” she said. “But different.”

Draco undid the other strap. She kicked the shoes off and slunk into bed, yawning.

“Like a brother, maybe,” she said.

Draco caught his breath.

“I’d like that,” he said. She didn’t answer. She had fallen asleep.

Draco took some Pepper-Up Potion and two paracetamol and settled himself in the chair next to her bed to watch over her in case she was sick in the night.

She texted him the next day while he was at work.

**AL: I’m so embarrassed**

Draco thought for a long time before replying.

_DM: about what?_

**AL: lol**

**AL: thank you**

He put the finishing touches on Potter’s potion before checking his phone again.

**AL: I’m sorry. I love you so much and I understand if my behaviour makes you want to. like. Return me**

_DM: I love you too_

_DM: can’t return you though_

_DM: I think you’re going to be rich and I’m holding out hope that you’ll buy me a house out of gratitude_

_DM: also, you’re grounded_

**AL: wait what**

**AL: r u serious**

_DM: yes_

**AL: it’s Fiona’s party this weekend!!!!!**

_DM: you had your party last night_

_DM: don’t freak out, we’ll make fondue and watch that stupid movie_

She didn’t answer. She would probably give him the cold shoulder for the rest of the week. Sometimes Draco fantasised about twenty-two-year-old Adelaide apologising for being such a difficult teenager, but then he thought about the guilt she’d feel if she remembered it all, and hoped she wouldn’t.

He went to the bathroom before going to Potter’s and stared at himself in the mirror. He looked like shit. He cast glamours on the bags under his eyes, on his twisted hand, but he was too tired to do them well, and it all looked weird, as if he were wearing cakey makeup and a flesh-coloured glove. He took the glamours off. He tried to fix his hair. It was no doing. Potter would open the door looking effortlessly hot in that _“oh this? I just found it on the floor,”_ sort of way. Draco dressed decently, but there was no way he could pretend he wasn’t trying. Which made days like today, when he looked like shit despite all his efforts, all the more depressing.

Potter didn’t seem to notice, however. He was on him almost before Draco had stepped through the door, hands all over Draco’s body, breath hot against Draco’s neck.

Tertius had hated it when Draco flinched. It always made his anger more violent, so Draco and Adelaide had both learned not to, to hold very still when frightened, and take the blows.

 _It’s only Potter,_ Draco reminded himself. He forced his muscles to unclench.

“Hang on, stop,” he said. Potter pulled back instantly, eyes blown wide. _See? Only Potter_ , thought Draco.

“What,” said Potter. He looked tense, as if he was about to start punching something. But Draco knew he wouldn’t.

“Look, can we just do the transactional thing first? It’s crap, the way we’ve been doing it,” said Draco.

“The… oh,” said Potter. “Yeah.” He patted down his trousers, swore. “This way,” he said, and led Draco into the sitting room.

He moved strangely. Too restlessly, like a caged tiger. He kept running his fingers through his hair as he searched for the money in a desk by the window.

“You’re in pain,” realised Draco.

Potter looked up.

“What?”

Draco was sifting through the reading he had done in his head, the things he had learnt about werewolves since finding out Potter had been bitten. And then he hit upon it.

“That’s why you want me,” he said.

“Here’s your money,” said Potter, tossing him the bag of coins and holding out his hand for the potion. But Draco’s brain was alight.

“No, wait, I think I can—” Draco paced to the window and back. “It’s connection.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can adjust the potion,” said Draco. “To deal with the ache.”

Potter shifted on his feet. His face was set, hard and determined.

“Can we talk _after_?”

“Oh,” said Draco. “Right. Yes.”

It explained a lot: Potter wanting him, Potter’s desperation. Draco had read about how sex helped with certain werewolf side-effects, but he hadn’t put two and two together.

They ended up on the floor, beside the fire. Draco was still delicate from a night of headache, so he used his hand, his left. It was clumsy. Potter climbed over Draco so that he was on his other side.

“There, you can use your right,” he said.

“Ah, no, it’s—my right hand’s a bit fucked,” said Draco, so Potter moved back.

After they’d both come, Potter lay spread-eagled on the hearthrug, panting.

“What were you on about, before?” he asked, eventually. Draco had dressed, and sat with his knees to his chest, against the sofa. He was lost in his head, already calculating how he would change the potion formula to include a painkilling element—but it would have to include the soothing pack-behaviour…

“I’ll bring you a new potion this evening,” said Draco. “Then you can add Granger or Weasley’s hair, and it should cure the ache.”

Potter sat up.

“I’ve never had sex with them,” he said. Draco rolled his eyes.

“Get your mind out of the gutter. It’s nothing to do with sex. It’s connection. Haven’t you noticed that you feel better after they touch you?”

Potter stared into the ashy fireplace.

“Huh,” he said.

“You never noticed, in two years?”

Potter glanced at him.

“I was in LA.”

“Oh,” said Draco. “That makes sense, actually. I take it you didn’t have much of a community there?”

Potter clenched his jaw, looking as if he thought this was a trick question, then shook his head.

“Right,” said Draco. “It’s a wolf thing. You need your pack.”

“My _pack_? Fuck off.”

“I will, actually,” said Draco, getting to his feet. Then he remembered Adelaide. “Shit. Give me a second…”

He texted her.

_DM: what are you doing this evening_

**AL: staying at school**

**AL: cookery club**

Draco stared at his phone.

_DM: you joined a school club?_

**AL: cookery club**

_DM: wow ok_

**AL: this is why I dont tell you things**

“Er, Malfoy? What’s going on?”

Draco looked up.

“Sorry. Sorry. Was just seeing if Adelaide would notice if I—” Potter’s face grew cold and cruel. Draco hastened on. “But she’s busy, anyway, so it’s fine.”

“Fine, is it,” said Potter.

Draco watched him hopelessly. Was he supposed to be with Adelaide 100% of the time when she wasn’t at school? Maybe he was. Maybe that’s what a good parent would do. He wondered if Potter gave reports about Draco’s parenting to his social worker.

“Well. I’ll be back in a few hours,” said Draco.

“Whatever,” said Potter.

Back at Dinsmore’s, Draco poured over his private workings, trying to separate the parts of his pain killer equation that would work in the new werewolf potion without counteracting any of the active ingredients. His head was foggy from lack of sleep, so he took a triple dose of Pepper-Up and checked his working five times. But eventually, he was sure he had cracked it. It was only another hour’s work to add the steps to that week’s batch. By 8 p.m., it was ready.

_DM: you still at school_

**AL: yep**

**AL: club runs till 10**

_DM: …_

_DM: that’s weirdly late_

**AL: we’re making a soufflé!!**

_DM: ah ok_

_DM: I’ll be back by then so I’ll see you later_

**AL: yep yep**

Potter opened the door, pulled him inside, and kissed him.

“Jesus,” said Draco, breaking away. “Does the pain come back that quickly?”

Potter looked confused.

“Christ,” said Draco. “Just wait until you have sex with someone you actually care about. Should last hours, then. Days, even.”

Potter frowned, looking as if he hadn’t understood a word Draco had said.

“Days… if it’s with someone I care about?” he asked.

“That’s what I said,” said Draco, stepping close to Potter and kissing him. Clearly, Potter wouldn’t be able to focus until he’d got off.

And that was a very good excuse for Draco to kiss him. He ran his hands through Potter’s black hair, pressed close against him, sighed into his mouth. Potter stood, strong and unyielding, and let Draco undress him, but then his patience seemed to run out. He hoisted Draco up so that Draco had to wrap his legs around Potter’s hips, and carried Draco into the sitting room.

***

Afterwards, they sat on the sofa, their heads tilted back, staring at the ceiling. Potter lolled his head over to look at him.

“You really think you’ve figured out how to make the ache go away?”

Draco nodded.

“Here,” he said, and handed Potter the vial. “Like I said, just one hair should do it. Pick either Granger or Weasley, and then try the other next time, see which works better. And you should try to build in contact hours with them, it’ll improve your symptoms.”

Potter took the vial and rolled it between his fingers.

“How do you know all this? I read all the books and there wasn’t anything about… _packs_.”

“It’s in the California potion guides,” said Draco. “I did research, after I found out about you.”

Potter looked as if he didn’t know what to make of that. His gaze dropped to Draco’s mangled right hand. He reached out slowly and pinched Draco’s wrist, lifted Draco’s arm, and Draco let him. Potter drew Draco’s hand up so that it was framed against the light, warped fingers jutting out at odd angles.

Potter whistled.

“It _is_ fucked,” he said. “What happened?”

“Tertius,” said Draco, shortly.

Potter went quite still, a frown building slowly between his brows.

“He…?”

“Yeah. Had a bit of temper,” said Draco.

Potter threw him a look that Draco thought was either scorn or confusion, he couldn’t be sure. Then he returned to Draco’s hand, moving it around, and Draco’s fingers cracked unpleasantly with each manipulation.

“Does it hurt?” asked Potter.

“It’s a bit achey,” said Draco.

“Sorry,” said Potter, letting go immediately.

“No, just—I mean, always. You weren’t hurting me,” said Draco. He had felt, while Potter observed his hand, that he was on the verge of passing some sort of judgment, and Draco wanted badly to know the verdict. But Potter did not touch him again. He still had that confused-or-scornful expression.

“I—” he said. His eyes flicked to Draco’s and back to the fireplace. “So…”

“It’s not a big deal,” said Draco, searching Potter’s face for some clue as to what was going on in his head. “Don’t—be all weird about it.”

Potter contorted his face into a horrible, false smile, still looking into the fireplace.

“You sure know how to pick your bosses,” he said.

Draco stared at him, but Potter didn’t look up. _Pick_ …! Did Potter think that Draco had weighed two options, one in which his body served as an outlet for the rages of more powerful men, and another where Draco led a nice normal life, and Draco had _chosen_ the former?

When Draco ended up in Hell, and Potter ended up in the other place—Draco hadn’t really understood much beyond Hell, when it came to Muggle religion—would Potter think Draco had chosen that, too? That it was what he had _picked?_

Although, perhaps that was what he _had_ done, at sixteen, when he took the Mark.

He remembered an essay he had helped Adelaide with in her French class, on a philosopher named Sartre, who talked about absolute freedom, and absolute responsibility. Draco stared at his deformed hand and felt the full weight of his choices, what they had led him to. Maybe that was what Potter meant.

Potter poked him. Draco looked up. Everything felt very floaty and far away, as if he was underwater.

“Malfoy?” said Potter, and he looked concerned. “You just spaced out.”

“I should go,” said Draco.

Potter followed him to the door. He still had that troubled expression, and he put his hand on Draco’s wrist when Draco reached for the knob.

“Draco,” he said.

Draco couldn’t look at him.

“It wasn’t something I _chose_ ,” said Draco, although he hadn’t meant to say anything.

“I know. I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that.”

Draco was answering before he could stop himself. The fearful, bewildered words tumbled out of him, unstudied.

“You think—you think I wanted any of this? _Deserved_ , maybe, I don’t know, probably, but _wanted?_ You think I _picked_ Tertius crushing my hand in a door hinge because I spilled cream of mushroom soup on the parquet?”

Potter was shaking his head, over and over. He took Draco’s face in his hands, so softly, and ran his thumbs over Draco’s cheeks.

“No,” he said. “Listen, I just panicked, I had… I had no idea Tertius was doing that to you, if I had known, I wouldn’t have—”

“I’m sure if it had been you, you would have riddled your way out of it, somehow, I’m sure you would have made better choices, but it didn’t feel—if there were other choices I didn’t know what they were,” said Draco.

“Hey, hey,” said Potter, leaning his forehead against Draco’s cheek, “no, of course I wouldn’t have, I’m so sorry I said that, I was just shocked. I’d never noticed your hand before. It took me by surprise.”

“I glamour it usually,” said Draco, his voice coming out in slightly broken fragments. “I was too tired today.”

“Draco,” said Potter, his nose nudging against Draco’s, and then he dipped in for a slow kiss. Draco made a high noise in his throat, and Potter tilted his mouth away, rested his forehead against Draco’s. His hands were on Draco’s neck, now. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“I tried to get away,” said Draco. “I was trying, why do you think I was so happy to see you, that day?”

“Oh,” said Potter.

“I should go,” said Draco. “Adelaide will be home soon.”

Potter squeezed his eyes shut.

“Fuck,” he muttered. He sank forward and kissed Draco again, more desperately even than before, then stepped away. “Sorry,” he said. Draco wasn’t sure what he was apologising for.

“Let me know if the potion works,” said Draco.

“Yeah. I will,” said Potter. His eyes fell on Draco’s hand again. “I will.”


	4. Chapter 4

There was one thing Harry kept remembering. It was Draco, seated across from him, exhausted from answering all of Harry’s questions, saying _“Please. That’s all I know. Please, I need to go… the, the groceries…”_

At the time, Harry had been disgusted by his cowardice, by his pathetic excuses. Now, though…

He got out his Pensieve from his study, looked at memory-Draco. He was sweaty and trembling and his eyes flickered pathologically to the clock on the chimneypiece as he begged: _the, the groceries_.

What had happened to him, when he finally got home?

Harry remembered the cowering terror he’d experienced as a child whenever he got anything wrong. The feeling that any mistake would be met with pitiless anger. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had never hit him, but they had found other ways to punish him—hunger and isolation and the spider-filled cupboard. As he watched Draco in the Pensieve, he _recognised_ that look: it was powerlessness.

Harry splashed cold water on his face. His body didn’t hurt at all. It didn’t for days, after he saw Malfoy.

Malfoy had been the only one to notice he was in pain. Had gone straight away to see what he could do about it.

All this time he had seen Malfoy’s cheating on his girlfriend as further proof of his continued treacherousness. Malfoy had slept with him to hurt him, and now was doing the same to Adelaide. But of course, Malfoy hadn’t slept with Harry to hurt him. He had come to Harry for help. And Harry had fucked him, then shouted at him.

He thought of what he had said— _You sure know how to pick your bosses_ —and winced. He tried to play on the piano, but couldn’t stop thinking about Draco spacing out, staring at the fireplace, at the flames, as though he saw his future there.

Harry Floo’d to Ron and Hermione’s, even though it was too late, really. They were in their pyjamas, making hot cocoa.

“Harry!” said Hermione.

“This is weird,” said Harry, “but can I sleep over?”

“Er,” said Hermione. “Yes? Is everything all right?”

“I think you guys are maybe like. My wolf pack.”

“Wicked,” said Ron.

“It’s…” Harry ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Hey, why didn’t Malfoy go to Azkaban, after the Tertius bust?”

“Harry… are you all right?”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “Just, was wondering.”

Ron looked at Hermione, and she put more milk in the saucepan, so there would be enough cocoa for Harry.

“Yeah,” said Ron. “It was sad, really. Obviously Tertius was a real piece of work, and at first it looked like Malfoy was involved, but it turned out to be a domestic violence case, where he was concerned. We turned it over to the social workers.”

“Domestic violence,” said Harry.

“Yeah, you know, Tertius was knocking him around. Wouldn’t let him leave the house, stole his money, that sort of thing. I don’t know much, I wasn’t on the case.”

“I think maybe I wasn’t a very good Auror,” said Harry. Ron and Hermione were silent, so he carried on. “I made assumptions. I jumped to conclusions. I didn’t look carefully enough. I never do.”

“You’re very brave,” said Hermione. “And determined. Which are key qualities in a good Auror.”

Harry put his head on the table.

“What brought this on?” asked Hermione.

“Nothing,” said Harry, and wouldn’t say more. He slept on the sofa in their bedroom. It was weird, and a little sad, and very comforting.

Harry went to Dinsmore’s shop twice in the next week, the first time in the hope that he would see Malfoy, the second, to leave Malfoy a note letting him know that the adjusted potion worked perfectly. Five days passed, six, and still Harry felt no pain.

* * *

“Do you believe in Hell?” asked Draco.

“No,” said Kevin. “Do you?”

Draco flexed the fingers on his right hand, tried to shrink them to a fist.

“Who goes, do you think?” he asked. “It must change by time period. Dante says adulterers go to Hell, and most people now would be adulterers by his standards.”

Kevin waited. He had an irksome habit of waiting.

“Because I think, even if it doesn’t exist, the fact that it might, and that one might have made choices that—” said Draco. “Just the fear of Hell is a form of Hell, maybe. Wondering if you’ve repented enough, changed enough.”

“I don’t know that hell is a helpful conceit for you,” said Kevin. Draco ignored him.

“What it comes down to, really, is who decides? Who’s the guy on triage? How lenient is he, on what basis does he decide what people deserve?”

“You were talking about Potter,” said Kevin. “What about Potter made you think of all this?”

There was a mug on Kevin’s desk that said _WORLD’S BEST THERAPIST_. Draco stared at it.

“It feels like he would know,” he said.

“You feel as if Potter can tell you if you’re going to hell?”

Draco jerked his shoulders.

“You’re making it sound stupid,” he said.

“I’m just trying to understand,” said Kevin.

“Who bought you that mug?” asked Draco. Kevin looked at where he was gesturing.

“I bought it,” he said.

“You bought yourself a _WORLD’S BEST THERAPIST_ mug?”

“You’re deflecting, Draco.”

“Honestly, I’m reeling at your self-confidence. What a testimonial! When we’re through, do you think I’ll start buying _WORLD’S BEST DRACO_ mugs?”

“Potter can’t tell you what you deserve, Draco. You have to decide that for yourself.”

Draco plucked at a loose thread of wool on the sofa arm.

“I know,” he said. “I tell Adelaide this shit all the time.”

“But you can’t believe it about yourself,” said Kevin.

“I just think it’s different, for me.” He frowned. “You know, I don’t think anyone’s looking out for Potter properly. I mean, he’s obviously got some serious problems trusting people, for instance. And he’s so self-sufficient all the time, I doubt anyone ever remembers he’s just twenty-two and an orphan and trying to figure it all out.”

“Do you think all that is true of you, as well?” asked Kevin.

“Oh,” said Draco, exasperated, “you’re impossible to talk to.”

* * *

It was the full moon on Saturday, and Harry was due to transform. He hadn’t told anyone, but Malfoy would know, because the potion would be slightly different.

Malfoy arrived on Thursday, looking handsome and distracted.

“Hey,” said Harry.

“Here,” said Malfoy, holding out the vial.

“Thanks. Tea?”

“Oh, er, all right,” said Malfoy. He took the money Harry offered him and followed Harry into the kitchen. Harry leant against the counter and watched him as the water boiled. Malfoy’s hand was glamoured again, it looked perfectly whole, and his clothes were neat and ironed. He always looked handsome in that way Harry could never achieve, chic and elegant, like an adult.

Harry wanted to say sorry, but he didn’t know where to begin, and he also felt vaguely opposed to opening the floor to apologies. He knew Draco would apologise back, about school, about the war, and somehow Harry really didn’t want him to.

“You’re turning this week,” said Malfoy.

“Yeah.”

“Will Granger and Weasley be there?”

“What? No, of course not,” said Harry. Malfoy gave him a peculiar look.

“It’s perfectly safe,” he said. Harry laughed. Perfectly safe, what a joke. He hadn’t been _perfectly safe_ since—well, ever. People near him always got hurt, one way or another.

Malfoy watched him with cold eyes as Harry finished making the tea, then said,

“Is it my potion-making ability that you don’t have faith in, or yourself?”

“Oh, what the fuck,” said Harry. “Jesus, Malfoy. What sort of a question is that?”

Malfoy shrugged one slender shoulder.

“You shouldn’t be alone when you transform,” he said. “Doesn’t it give you anxiety? All the books say that transforming in isolation is bad for your mental health.”

“What are you, my mum? Leave it,” said Harry, then waited for Malfoy to make some sort of dead mother joke. He didn’t. He just put down his unsipped mug, then came lazily towards Harry, sinuous and cat-like.

“Fine,” he said. “We don’t have to talk. We’re bad at it, clearly.”

They didn’t talk, and maybe the fact that Harry had been antagonistic ought to have to have made it feel more like—like hate sex, or meaningless sex, or even just sex. Instead, it was sensuous and slow. Each kiss they placed on each other’s bodies felt like an exploration.

“You’re gorgeous,” Harry said, despite himself, and Malfoy looked so pleased and surprised that Harry hid his face in his neck, not wanting to see anymore.

They had never revisited the conversation about why Malfoy didn’t want to let Harry fuck him. They just held close and touched each other and sucked each other without negotiating; figuring out what was right each time by instinct. It was no different now, but it occurred to Harry, as he gripped the back of his own neck to stop himself from touching Draco’s hair, that they seemed to understand each other perfectly when they were silent. It had never been so good with anyone else. He had never felt so in sync, with anyone else.

“You really won’t have Granger or Weasley over?” asked Malfoy, when they were done.

“No,” said Harry. “Have you been thinking about that this whole time?”

Draco laughed, and it was a lovely sound, normal, like they liked each other.

“No,” he said. “I haven’t been thinking at all, for once.”

Harry didn’t know how to answer that, and Draco left.

***

Harry spent the next few days dreading the full moon. It was true, what Malfoy had said: transforming gave him terrible anxiety, not just on the day, but for almost a week afterwards. The entire experience was a painful ordeal. When he was reduced to his wolf brain, he panicked until the potion knocked him out. It was probably no more than fifteen minutes, but it always felt like an eternity, in which he searched desperately for someone to help, and never found anyone.

On Saturday, he ate a bleeding steak for dinner, then paced around his house, pent up and reckless. He’d already had the potion, could feel it fighting in his blood with his urge to tear up trees by the roots, to run wild and free through the streets of London.

Twenty minutes before the moon came up, there was a knock at his door. It was Malfoy. He held a plate with tin foil over it, and looked nervous.

“What are you doing here?” asked Harry.

“Let me in,” said Malfoy, and Harry did, stunned into obedience. Malfoy went into the kitchen and uncovered the plate, revealing a much more appetising steak than the one Harry had just eaten. “Adelaide made it,” he said. “I don’t think she noticed me sneaking it out.”

Harry could feel the different threads of him pulling at each other. The wolf in him was furious, wanted to throw the plate at the wall and then push Draco up against it and show him that he wasn’t to belong to anyone else, only to one person, only to Harry. The normal, _sane_ part of him felt sadness and disgust and guilt.

“I’m not hungry,” he said. “Why are you here?”

“You shouldn’t transform alone,” said Malfoy. “But I get that you’re worried about hurting Granger and Weasley. With me, you won’t be worried.”

Harry looked Draco up and down.

“You think I don’t care about hurting you?”

Draco looked out of the window.

“You won’t hurt me,” he said. “Unlike you, I have supreme confidence in my potion.”

“I do care,” said Harry. Draco looked at him. “Of course I care.”

Draco’s lips parted in a silent movement. He seemed bewildered.

“And I don’t need you here. I’m fine,” said Harry added.

“You’re so stubborn. It’s not your best quality,” said Malfoy, snapping back into normality. “Why can’t you just accept help, when it’s offered?”

This was so similar to the kind of thing Hermione continually said that Harry just stared at him for a moment.

“Fine,” he said. “Have it your way.”

They sat in tense silence, not quite glaring at each other.

“We should go to my bedroom,” said Harry. Malfoy raised his eyebrows. “Not for—”

“I didn’t say anything,” said Malfoy.

“I hate falling asleep somewhere random,” said Harry. “Makes me wake up all achey.”

Malfoy nodded slowly and trailed after Harry. He dragged his feet on the stairs, and stopped when he reached Harry’s bedroom door.

“You can come in,” said Harry.

“Thanks,” murmured Draco, ducking his head. He seemed to be avoiding looking at the bed. His face was flushed, and suddenly Harry knew exactly what he was thinking about, and Harry was thinking about it too: that mesmerising first time, soft with warmth and affection, when they had looked at each other as if they knew each other completely.

“I’ll go, if you want,” said Draco. He looked discomfited, and Harry was shocked to realise that he didn’t want Draco to look like that.

The moonlight was already creeping across the carpet.

“You’re here,” said Harry. “You might as well stay for the show.”

“Right,” said Malfoy, with a small laugh.

And then the show began.

It hurt like crazy, it always did, the feeling of all the cells in his body shifting and becoming something new, the compressing of his thoughts. The world got bigger and simpler. Smells, so many smells, including—Harry growled, felt his hackles rising; an intruder.

But the intruder held out his hand. Harry smelled it and recognised it. A clean, friendly smell. A friend, in fact. Harry licked the hand, and the man made a sound.

“Oh,” he said. “You’re a beauty, aren’t you?”

Harry jumped up and put his paws on the man’s shoulders so that he could lick his face. The man stumbled backwards, hitting the wall, but he didn’t seem frightened. He laughed.

“Easy,” he said. “Oh, you’re lovely. Oh, I think I like you better like this. May I pet you? Is that rude?”

Harry was starting to get sleepy. It seemed sooner than usual; he usually fought it off. But he felt safer with the man, felt sure that between the two of them, they would be able to protect themselves in the night. He dropped to the floor and walked away, searching for somewhere comfortable to curl up. He leapt up onto the soft bed, then looked at the man, head cocked.

“Yes, all right,” said the man, and came to sit next to him. Harry closed his eyes, and the man stroked his head, tentatively at first, and then, once he was sure that Harry liked it, more purposefully. His fingers felt around Harry’s ears. “So soft,” he said. “But your hair is quite soft, so I suppose that makes sense. Can you understand me?”

Harry was tired. He could feel himself drifting into sleep, calm and peaceful and safe.

Once, he heard a crack, and sat up, ready to pounce, but the man put one hand on his head and said, “it’s just the wind. Go back to sleep,” and Harry trusted him, and was so very tired. He lay back down. The man carried on stroking him. His body was warm, and Harry fell into a deep, untroubled sleep.

***

When he woke up, the sun was buttery yellow on the counterpane, and Draco was asleep beside him. Harry was disoriented. His body didn’t hurt, nor did he feel the lingering dread he had experienced after every transformation before this. He moved gingerly, reaccustoming himself to his limbs. They were gangly and awkward in comparison with his wolf form.

Draco stirred and opened his eyes. He turned his head to look at Harry. He smiled.

“Morning,” he said.

“Morning,” said Harry, suddenly breathless, nervous. Draco looked unfairly put-together, given that he had just spent the night in bed with a werewolf.

They looked at each other for a few seconds. Harry realised he was smiling too, that they were just smiling at each other.

“How are you feeling?” asked Draco at the same time as Harry said, “You were quite into me as a wolf.”

Draco laughed and covered his face with his hands. The glamour had faded, and his right hand was gnarled again. Harry was struck by the strangest urge to delicately kiss each twisted knuckle.

“It’s not my fault,” said Draco. “You have no idea how disarming it is to have a great big wolf come at you like a puppy dog. I wanted to take you home and put a bow around your neck.”

 _You couldn’t_ , Harry thought, but didn’t say. _Because then your girlfriend would find out about us_.

He sat up, gloom settling on him. He swung his legs over the side of the bed so that he was facing away from Malfoy.

“It felt better, having someone there,” he said. “A lot better. So. Thank you.”

Malfoy sat up, too. Harry could feel his eyes on the back of his neck.

“That’s good,” he said. “Next time you can have Weasley or Granger over.”

With a dizzying lurch in perception, Harry suddenly remembered who he had spent the night with. _Malfoy_. Remembered all the tiny cruelties, and all the big ones, too.

“It’s funny,” he said. “Draco Malfoy, pro-werewolf.”

He couldn’t see Malfoy, nor could he hear him. Malfoy didn’t seem to be breathing.

“Yeah,” said Malfoy, after a pause. “Unexpected.”

“What’s next? Half-breeds and Muggles?” asked Harry. He was trying—failing to make light of it. He wanted them to skip apologies, to go straight to jokes and friendship, because he didn’t know how to apologise to Malfoy for almost killing him when they were sixteen, for being cruel when Malfoy came to him, quiet and pliant and nineteen, asking for help.

But Harry had misjudged. He knew he had misjudged, because there was another long pause, and he felt the bed move as Malfoy got up.

“I’ve changed quite a bit, since school,” he said. He spoke lightly, as if the subject wasn’t of any importance to him. “Anyway. I’d better get going, I don’t want Adelaide to notice I was gone.”

Jealousy, hot and miserable, spiked in Harry’s stomach.

“Yeah,” he said. “You’ve changed so much, Malfoy. Regular angel, you are.”

Malfoy went to the door. Harry couldn’t see his face.

“Let me know if you experience any uncomfortable side-effects, and I’ll make something up for you, to help,” he said, speaking a little too quickly.

His footsteps were fast on the stairs, as if he was running away.

* * *

At least Adelaide was doing a bit better. She hadn’t come home drunk in a while, she had been studious about her magic homework. They hadn’t fought in days. Draco counted up all these reasons to be glad, and turned his mind away from Potter.

He missed Pansy. Pansy would have sympathised with him. She had always been liberal with her consolations, even when Draco didn’t deserve them. She wouldn’t have pointed out that this was Draco’s own fault, for allowing himself to be used by someone who didn’t care about him, just because he was desperate and frightened and fascinated.

It was Adelaide’s birthday in a month. He lost himself in making her perfume. She knew what he was doing, because the flat was filled with all his experiments.

“What’s that?” she asked, coming back ten minutes late from her cooking club. She was wearing less makeup than usual, Draco noticed. He hoped it was a sign that she was feeling more confident.

“I’m trying to figure out what that candle you liked smelled of. Remember? At the pub we went to for Christmas lunch?”

“Oh! But that’s too wintery,” said Adelaide, dropping her rucksack and dipping her head by Draco’s arm so he could tap it with his wand. He did, and her hair went bright pink. “It did smell good, though.”

“You think it’s too Christmassy?” asked Draco, looking at the table, which was covered in bowls of spices and plants.

“I don’t know, don’t you think so?”

“Maybe. I think if we isolate one element, we could use it as a base note.”

Adelaide gave him an abrupt and startling hug.

“You’re brilliant, you know that?” she said. Draco smiled into the hug, then moved away.

“What do you want?” he asked.

“Nothing!”

Draco laughed, and went back to work.

“Are the girls coming over later?” he asked.

“No.”

“They haven’t been round in a while,” said Draco, picking up some pine needles with a delicate set of tongs and smelling them.

“Ugh,” said Adelaide. “Honestly, I can’t with those bitches. I hate drama.”

Draco lowered his tongs.

“You guys fought?”

“No, it’s not a big deal,” said Adelaide.

“It _is_ a big deal, if you’re not talking to your best friends,” said Draco, fear waking up in his chest. “Are you okay?”

“I’m _fine_. I’ve just been busy with the cooking club, and they’ve been really weird about it. They’re just jealous.”

Draco seriously doubted that. Tasha, Fiona and Ellie had been nothing less than a blessing. He trusted them much more than he trusted Adelaide.

“They’re nice,” he said. “They care about you.”

“Can we _not_?” said Adelaide, and Draco knew her well enough to drop it.

Later, he would berate himself for his stupidity, for not catching the warning signals. Would hate himself for his blinding optimism. But that day, he only smiled at her in a way he hoped was supportive, and got back to work on her birthday perfume.

* * *

Harry was increasingly aware that he _liked_ Draco, and that it was hopeless to like him. It was a slow-motion heartbreak, he knew that. Yet he also felt better than he had in years, now that Draco had cured his chronic pain. And Ron and Hermione were delighted that he was spending so much time with them. They had bought a piano especially for him, and he spent hours each day at their house, mindlessly practicing. Neither of them asked him about jobs, and he loved them for it.

“Has the office changed much?” he asked Ron.

“A bit,” said Ron, very casually. Hermione had gone still. They were at a restaurant on Diagon Alley. Photographers kept accosting them. “You could come round, sometime.”

Harry lifted his head.

“What, visit?”

“Yeah,” said Ron. “Might liven up my day a bit.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Harry. “Yeah.”

***

He went on Wednesday evening, because he was going mad waiting for Thursday, for Draco. He kept going back and forth on what had happened on Sunday morning. Sometimes he was pretty sure he’d been a dick and had hurt Malfoy’s feelings. Other times, he was equally convinced that he needed to protect himself from Malfoy before it was too late: he had a girlfriend, after all. Harry couldn’t make up his mind. He thought it might be easier, with Draco there. But he was impatient, and time passed too slowly. Visiting Ron on the night shift was a welcome distraction.

Everyone seemed delighted to see him. Robards took him aside and gave him a little speech about how Harry could come back anytime, he knew that, didn’t he? He just had to say the word. Ron lounged around in doorways, grinning, bright-eyed.

None of it felt right. Harry’s pulse had picked up the moment he entered the building. As people talked to him, he found himself falling into that old habit of scanning for exits. He had hated LA—but he had learnt how to stop living as if he was on the edge of slaughter, there. All it took was this office for it all to come rushing back.

“Anything interesting happened tonight?” he asked, as they went to the holding cells. Ron had the shift there for the next few hours.

“Some shit-faced teenager screaming down Knockturn Alley. I think Nancy called her guardian already,” said Ron. “Hey Nancy! Look who I’ve brought!”

“Harry!” said Nancy, pulling him into a hug.

And just then, two things happened. First, Harry looked up at the bars of the holding cell, and spotted Malfoy’s girlfriend, Adelaide. Second, Malfoy himself walked in, looking panicked, his hand buried in his hair, as if he was trying to pull it out.

“Hi,” he said distractedly to Ron, not seeming to register that it was Ron he was talking to, “I was contacted about Adelaide Lovell, I’m her guardian, is she okay?”

“You’re sleeping with your _teenage ward_?” asked Harry. He had broken free of Nancy’s embrace without noticing it, and was looking from Adelaide to Malfoy in horror. In the bright light of the Ministry holding cell, she didn’t look eighteen at all. She couldn’t have been older than fifteen, in fact.

“What,” said Malfoy, stopping in his tracks. Then he said it again, his eyes focusing on Harry. “What did you say?”

Harry gestured vaguely between them, but already he was beginning to doubt himself. Malfoy swayed on his feet. He looked around, as if for support. Adelaide was passed out on the bench in her cell.

Harry had never seen an expression like the one that was on Malfoy’s face now.

“You think I’m—” he couldn’t seem to say it.

“Holy shit,” said Ron. Nancy’s face was hard. She took Malfoy’s arm.

“Mr Malfoy, you’re going to have to come with me,” she said.

“Wait,” said Harry. “Wait, I think I misunderstood.”

Malfoy was almost green.

“Is she okay,” he asked Nancy quietly, as Nancy led him away. Harry followed after them.

“Wait,” he said, “wait, Nancy.”

“We have to follow protocol when an accusation like that is made about a minor,” said Nancy, giving Draco a disgusted look.

“Of course,” said Draco, “that’s good, that you’re vigilant; is she okay, they didn’t tell me…”

“Sorry, Harry, only authorised personnel when we administer Veritaserum,” said Nancy. They had reached the interrogation room.

“Hang on,” said Harry, “I really think I made a mistake.”

“No, no,” said Draco, who by this point seemed almost delirious, “no I’m glad you—take accusations seriously, I don’t mind, whatever you need.” He was speaking only to Nancy. He wouldn’t look at Harry.

“Well, isn’t that big of you,” said Nancy, and then rolled her eyes at Harry, as if they were in on a joke together. She pushed Draco into the interrogation room and closed the door in Harry’s face.

Ron found him. Harry was still standing in front of the soundproof interrogation door. The room was spinning.

“That was mental!” said Ron. “Malfoy’s been keeping some teenage sex slave? How did you know?”

“No,” said Harry, “no, I…”

He was thinking back, trying to decide where he had come up with the Malfoy-Adelaide relationship theory, where his proof had come from. The club, of course, but now that he knew Malfoy was her guardian, the memory took new form: Malfoy furious because Harry had been dancing with an underage girl, because the underage girl in question had sneaked out of his care.

“She lived with Tertius,” Ron was saying. “That’s how she and Malfoy met; apparently she was going to be sent to a Home, and Malfoy volunteered to keep her. Super fucked up if he was like, dating her.”

“He wasn’t,” said Harry. “I was wrong, I misunderstood.” But he couldn’t explain any further. He couldn’t think, let alone speak. He only saw, over and over, Draco’s face, looking at him, saying _What? What did you say?_

Harry sat by the front desk, waiting for Draco to come out, but when Draco _did_ finally emerge, he wished he hadn’t. Draco looked about ten years older than he had walking in.

“False alarm,” said Nancy, although she was still holding onto Draco’s arm, as though she thought he would make a run for it if she let go.

“Is she okay,” asked Draco. His voice was so dry it must have hurt to speak.

“She’s in there,” said Ron, gesturing at the cell. “She’s all right, a bit out of it.”

Draco glanced at Ron, then saw Harry, and looked quickly away. Nancy opened the cell door and Draco went in. He knelt before the bench and spoke to Adelaide in a low voice.

“Mmm,” slurred Adelaide. “What took you so long?”

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m here now. Let’s go home.”

Adelaide wrapped her arms around his neck and he helped her off the bench, discomfort coming off him in waves. He dropped her the instant she was standing and went to Ron.

“Thanks for looking out for her. Do I need to sign something?”

“Yeah,” said Ron, who kept looking at Harry. Harry wished he wouldn’t. It was abundantly clear that Draco was doing his best to pretend Harry wasn’t in the room.

“Draco,” said Harry.

“Here,” said Draco, pushing the parchment back at Ron. “Thanks again. Goodnight.”

***

Draco did not deliver Harry’s potion the next day. A bland-faced witch named Cynthia did.

“Draco mentioned I’d have to sign a secrecy contract,” she said.

“No, no, that’s fine,” said Harry. He’d changed three times that morning. He’d not slept all night. He’d watched back almost all his memories of Draco since returning to England in his Pensieve. “Er, is Draco all right?”

“Draco?” Cynthia looked puzzled. “Why wouldn’t he be?”

* * *

“Because I’m _young_ and that’s what young people _do!”_ Adelaide shouted at him. Draco had waited until the next day to talk to her about her drunken escapade, but it seemed to make no difference to her fury, and anyway, Draco was dealing with it badly. He knew he was, knew he was barely holding himself together, and putting all his misery on her. That, after all, was what she had always done to him.

“Sure, Adelaide, fifteen-year-olds go to parties and get tipsy and play spin-the bottle. They don’t get fucking black-out drunk on Knockturn Alley by themselves!”

“What the fuck do you know about it? All you were doing when you were fifteen was trying to be a good Death Eater and murder people!”

The silence that fell was loud, like the silence of leaving fireworks. They were in their tiny kitchen. Draco had been proud of himself, when he got the flat. It was little and shabby, and he had worked himself to the bone to afford it. His eyes darted around it now, looking everywhere but at Adelaide, trying desperately to focus.

He wasn’t going to manage it, he realised.

“Okay,” he said, and put the palms of his hands to his eyes.

“Draco,” said Adelaide, her voice completely different. “I…”

“I was sixteen, actually,” said Draco. “But I take your point.”

“Draco, I’m…” said Adelaide.

“That’s okay,” said Draco, not taking his hands away from his face. “Let’s, uh, let’s talk later, is that all right.”

He fled. He didn’t want to be in the flat. He never usually left her alone there, he knew he was being irresponsible, but he was terrified he would say something he couldn’t take back.

He went to the nearest church, the one he always passed on his way to the Apparition point. It was a mediocre medieval thing, clumsy English Gothic, dark and ungraceful. He sat in the last pew and cried.


	5. Chapter 5

When he got back to the flat, Adelaide had made creamy parmesan gnocchi with asparagus. It was his favourite.

“Smells delicious,” he said.

“Maybe you should put it in my perfume,” she said, setting the table.

“You told me no foods! Do you have any idea how much harder that makes it?”

Adelaide wrinkled her nose.

“Don’t want to attract bears,” she said.

“There aren’t any bears in England.”

“ _That we know of_ ,” said Adelaide. Draco laughed, and after a beat, Adelaide did too. Then they looked at each other.

“I’m sorry,” said Adelaide, wringing her hands, twisting them through her bangles.

“It’s really fine,” said Draco. “I mean, what you said is fine. The drinking is not.”

Adelaide hung her head.

“I’m sorry I’m such a fuck-up.”

“Oh,” said Draco. “No, don’t… look at this gnocchi. Would a fuck-up know how to make gnocchi?”

“Maybe,” said Adelaide, and she burst into tears. Draco held her until she stopped, and then they just stood like that, adrift in the small kitchen.

***

The next day, he took a day off work and had Adelaide skip school. They went to St Mungo’s.

“I don’t need help,” she kept hissing at him. He ignored her, and approached the Welcome Witch with an ostentatiously friendly smile, hoping she wouldn’t recognise him by his hair.

“Hello, how are you? I was hoping you could direct me to the drugs and alcohol rehabilitation centre,” he said, leaning winsomely against the counter.

“The what?” asked the Welcome Witch, in the glum tones of the underpaid.

“My friend here’s having some…” Adelaide glared at him so hard that he had to look away. “… issues, with alcohol.”

The Welcome Witch glanced at Adelaide with a critical eye.

“Cursed liquor? Fourth floor. Poisoned, it’s third.”

“No, there’s nothing wrong with the alcohol,” said Draco.

“Just with me, apparently,” said Adelaide.

“You could always try demon possession, eighth floor,” said the Welcome Witch doubtfully.

Draco stared at her. It was amazing to him that he had spent the first eighteen years of his life believing his society had cracked it, had figured out how to function better than everyone else’s.

“Right,” he said. “Thanks so much.” He turned on his heel and walked out. Adelaide jogged after him.

“Not going to exorcise me?” she asked.

“And lose your whole personality?”

“Ha,” she said drily. “Where are we going?”

The NHS was predictably more _with it,_ as it always was with anything relating to mental health. The Wizarding World had a very, _if it’s not bleeding profusely from a curse wound, why fix it_ approach to well-being. Draco had only learned about alcoholism from a pamphlet he had once spent twenty minutes loudly mocking in Kevin’s office, then surreptitiously taken home.

Unfortunately, the NHS was also chronically underfunded. Adelaide’s GP put her on a waiting list for an out-patient rehab facility, and gave her a printed hand-out about the value of exercise.

By the time they got home, neither Draco nor Adelaide were speaking to one another.

Draco locked himself in his bedroom and went over his accounts. Each month he set aside some of his pitiful income, saving for a house. He had picked up a brochure for a private in-patient rehab facility. Even with all of his savings, he couldn’t afford it.

 _I hate being poor,_ he wrote on the windowsill in pencil, then hastily rubbed it out when he realised what he had done.

***

“So you miss him?” asked Kevin.

“I didn’t say that,” said Draco.

“You said that your life feels empty without him.”

“ _Comparatively_ ,” said Draco. “ _Comparatively_ empty.”

“You could talk to him,” said Kevin.

“That’s bad advice,” said Draco. “The NHS doesn’t pay you to give me bad advice.”

“Why do you say it’s bad advice?”

“Because he hates me!” said Draco, much louder than he had intended. He lowered his eyes. “Fuck. It’s just sad, that’s all. To like someone so much, and have them think so little of you.”

“You can’t control how other people feel about you, Draco.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t control how much I want him either, apparently.”

“It’s unusual for you to be romantically interested in someone,” said Kevin. Draco made an aggravated sound.

“I hate your office,” he said. “Did you know that? I hate it.”

Kevin looked thrown, but he recovered quickly.

“What do you dislike about it?”

Draco stood and went to a poster that said _YOU are beautiful. YOU are important_.

“Right. This poster, it was probably made by wage slaves in China. Don’t look at me like that, I read a thing about it when Adelaide was studying sweatshops in her Ethics class.”

Kevin waited.

“So,” said Draco. “Who’s speaking? Not the underpaid foreign children, we can assume. The CEO? Mr Inspirational Poster himself? Are you fucking kidding me? He’s cackling away in his James Bond villain volcano-mansion, because he tricked you into spending £3.99 on this meaningless nonsense. And that’s before we even get to the message.”

Kevin was looking at him with a strange expression. Draco was hot, restless. Angry, actually. Yeah, angry.

“‘ _YOU are important_.’ It’s talking to everyone, everyone who sees it, but what about the workers who made it, are they important? What is importance? Why does that CEO man get to make a decision like that? You know what it’s like?” Draco was aware that he sounded hysterical, but couldn’t seem to stop himself. “ _Dogs_. Everyone’s like, Oh my dog loves me unconditionally. Like that’s a good thing. You think my Uncle Tertius was important? You think he deserved unconditional love? What about my father, what about—”

His throat closed off. He blinked several times, gave a stiff bow, said, “Here all week,” and returned to the sofa.

What felt like a whole minute passed before Kevin spoke.

“You aren’t your father or your uncle, Draco,” he said.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I don’t care about your stupid fucking poster thinking I’m important. I just.” He swallowed. “I’d just like _someone_ to think that. About me.”

“Adelaide—”

“That doesn’t count, she depends on me for everything, that’s not importance, it’s necessity,” said Draco.

“I doubt she sees it that way.”

Draco dropped his eyes.

“Sometimes it felt as if I was important to Harry.”

He could feel Kevin watching him, but he didn’t look up.

“Time’s up,” said Draco.

* * *

Harry went to Dinsmore’s shop. Bland-faced Cynthia told him Draco wasn’t around. He went back the next day, and bland-faced Cynthia told him that Draco was busy. On the third day, he caught Dinsmore.

“Draco? Of course, Mr Potter,” said Dinsmore, then craned his neck and shouted. “ _Malfoy!_ Get out here!”

Draco emerged a few seconds later, hastily rolling down his sleeves, a smudge of ash on his cheek. He went rigid when he saw Harry.

“I just, er,” Harry said to Dinsmore. “Had to ask him something. About, er. The potion.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Dinsmore looked greatly offended.

“Any questions you have about my potions can be addressed to me,” he said.

Draco made to turn away.

“I didn’t say you could go,” said Dinsmore. Draco turned obediently back round again, his face impassive. “What did you wish to ask, Mr Potter?”

“Just,” said Harry. He hadn’t thought this through. He never thought things through. “If someone made—a mistake. In a potion. Could they fix it.”

“That’s a fascinating question,” said Dinsmore.

“Some mistakes are based on unchangeable things,” said Draco. “Mr Dinsmore, if I don’t put in the lacewings now, I’ll have to start from scratch. Please excuse me.”

***

Harry played a lot of Satie.

“It’s depressing,” said Ginny.

“You don’t have to come over.”

“Ron reckons you’re in some weird Malfoy spiral since you ran into him at the Aurors’,” said Ginny, lounging against the piano.

“Does he.”

“Is all classical music this gloomy?”

Harry started playing Mozart’s _Requiem._

“You’re less fun than you used to be,” said Ginny.

***

Ron, of course, tried to talk to him about it, but Harry didn’t know how to begin. Didn’t know how to say, _he came to me when he needed help, and I was cruel to him_.

It felt, to some degree, as if Draco had the right idea, in cutting them off. Nothing had changed between them since they were sixteen, clearly, when Harry had found him crying and reacted by gutting him.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the strangely effortless way it had been good, though. The way they had woken up the morning after Harry’s transformation, and just smiled at each other.

Harry hadn’t made any attempt to see Draco in several weeks when he looked up from the frozen food section of the market and saw Draco standing right next to him. Instantly, Harry was brought back to that moment, over two years before. Seeing Draco for the first time since Azkaban. How handsome he had looked; how friendly. As if he, too, had gone over his memories and thought _there’s another interpretation here, we can’t just have hated each other_. He had seemed perfectly unsurprised to see Harry, had smiled as if there was nothing for them to do but start afresh.

Now, however, he was not smiling. He looked just as alarmed as Harry felt.

“Hey,” said Harry, slowly, cautiously. “I didn’t know you shopped here.”

“My place doesn’t have good spices. Adelaide—” he cut himself off.

“Draco, I’m so sorry,” said Harry, the words rushing out of him. “I didn’t think, I wasn’t—I didn’t mean to—”

“Stop. Just stop. It’s over.”

“Sure,” said Harry. “Yes. Whatever you want.”

Draco nodded curtly and turned away, then turned back, looking as if he were doing it despite himself.

“What I want to know, is how you could think I was capable of—” he stumbled. “How you could think I was like, like my Uncle Tertius, how you could think that, and still sleep with me. I grant that I have my own problems, but what does that say about you?”

Harry stood speechless, holding an icy bag of frozen peas. He wanted to say he hadn’t thought Draco was a bad person, but that wasn’t quite right, because he had, in terrifying flashes. Had liked Draco, and felt inherently connected to him, and wanted him—but had been frightened, all the time, that Draco would betray him. Better men than Draco had done it, after all.

Draco’s eyes moved in quick, jerky movements around the market, never resting on Harry’s face.

“So,” he said, and left, leaving Harry quite unable to move.

Perhaps Draco did not realise the extent to which his sudden presence, his burning hurt, would incapacitate Harry. He only went the next aisle over, which is how it was that Harry overheard his entire conversation with Adelaide.

* * *

Adelaide was the next aisle over.

“You were sleeping with Potter?” she said. Draco’s blood was pounding through his head, his chest swollen and painful. In the last week, he had told himself that he was over it, really, although he did keep going back to the sad Gothic church and staring at the paintings of Hell. The moment he had seen Potter again, he had known, with a jolting misery, what a sham his recovery had been. Potter’s dark hair fell over his eyes. He smelled woody, somehow, as if he spent all his time at bonfires. His arms were wiry and muscular, and he stood as if he knew how important he was, how right. Even when he hesitated, it was with a vibrancy and vividness that Draco knew he would never have himself, that he would never get close to again.

Adelaide was waiting. Draco nodded.

“Have you even ever slept with anyone else?” she asked. Draco made a heartbroken laughing sound.

“What do you think?”

“And he thought you were having sex with me? That’s messed up!”

Draco took the marshmallows from her and put them in his basket.

“It’s fine,” he said. “I knew what he thought of me.”

Adelaide put her hand on his arm, squeezing until he looked up to meet her gaze.

“You deserve better,” she said.

It was what he said to her. She was quoting him.

“Addy…!” he said, his voice light and careless, or almost. “Are you giving me a pep talk?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Come on, Coach. Let’s get Mars bars and make rice crispy treats.”

As they were paying, Draco spotted Potter leaving the shop. He walked quickly, head down. He hadn’t bought anything.

In the flat, Adelaide assigned Draco the task of stirring the chocolate so that it wouldn’t burn.

“You should date someone else,” she said. “Make him jealous.”

“I doubt I’ll ever see him again,” said Draco.

“What about Kevin?” said Adelaide. “Keep stirring!!”

“Sorry. Kevin? As in, axe-murderer therapist Kevin?”

Adelaide added the marshmallows.

“Is he an axe-murderer?” she asked.

“Could be,” said Draco. “You never know. Anyway, he’d lose his licence, and also, I dislike him.”

“Ah, but that’s your type,” said Adelaide, nudging him out of the way and taking over the stirring. “People you dislike.”

“Is it,” said Draco. “I don’t feel like I have a type. Feels like there’s just Potter.”

Adelaide looked at him with that unreadable expression she had sometime, and didn’t say anything.

* * *

One thing that suddenly and horribly made sense was Draco’s unwillingness to have sex with Harry again, after that first time. That only time, if what Harry had overheard was anything to go on. He remembered Draco’s huge eyes, his dazed expression, the way he had fervently nodded each time Harry looked at him, the small noises he had made, each one an expression of pleasure and shock. Then he remembered Draco’s stumbling answers, the way he shifted uncomfortably on his chair as Harry interrogated him. His fear.

Guilt like this was a physical feeling. There was an abstract sort of justice to the pain, as if Draco had cleared away the ache in Harry’s muscles only to replace it with a relentless pang in Harry’s chest.

He stopped by the shop several times, but Draco always found ways not to speak to him. Finally, he came forward when Harry arrived, pulled him out of the way, and said,

“If you’re so damned sorry, _leave me alone.”_

Harry played a lot of Debussy, and the weeks went by.

* * *

He had moved on to Beethoven when Draco showed up on his doorstep.

“Moonlight Sonata? Hack,” said Draco, staring over Harry’s shoulder. He looked on the verge of panic. He always seemed on the verge of something awful, and Harry found himself wishing he had understood how precious it had been, the morning after the full moon, to have Draco quiet and smiling and calm in his bed.

“Are you okay?”

“May I come in? Thanks.” Draco went straight to the sitting room. He leant an elbow on the mantelpiece. He wore a slim dark grey t-shirt and well-cut black trousers. Harry briefly wondered whether they looked so good because they were expensive, or because they were on Draco.

“Is everything okay?” he asked, even though it clearly was not. However neatly dressed he was, Draco was evidently on the brink of collapse. His hair flopped into his eyes. It looked good, but also deeply and shockingly unkempt. He turned his head towards Harry.

“If I tell you, you have to promise you won’t, you won’t try to, to report me or—or to get her taken away from me,” he said.

“I promise,” said Harry. Draco looked stunned by how quickly he’d agreed.

“On your honour,” he said. Harry laughed.

“Yes. On my honour. Whatever that’s worth.”

Draco pushed away from the mantelpiece, went to the window, then came back again.

“She’s run away,” he said. “I went to the Muggle police; they said she has to be missing for 48 hours? Before they’ll do anything? Fucking insane; and I can’t go to the Aurors because they’re about an inch away from taking her away from me, and maybe they _should_ , oh _God_!”

Harry intercepted Draco as he paced across the room. Took his arms and stilled him.

“Of course they shouldn’t take her away,” said Harry. “When did she leave?”

Draco’s eyes were big in his face.

“Last night we went to bed early, and—why didn’t I _check_ on her??”

“Why would you have checked on her? She was sleeping,” said Harry.

“I’m going to Hell,” said Draco, and the gravity with which he said it chilled Harry.

“Hey,” said Harry, shaking him a little. “We’re going to find her.”

“You should Veritaserum me,” said Draco.

“What? Why?”

“I could be lying. Maybe I’ve done something to her.”

“You haven’t,” said Harry, bewildered. Draco pulled away and fell onto the sofa, curling, crumpling into it.

“You need to check!” he said. “Anyone could be taking advantage of her, you need to _check!”_

“Okay,” said Harry, as though talking to a spooked horse. “Okay. I think I have some in my study. Wait here.”

Draco made an unfathomably miserable noise, so Harry decided to Summon the Veritaserum, instead.

“Here,” he said. “Stick out your tongue.”

Draco lifted his head and obediently presented his tongue. Harry put one finger under his chin, tilted his face up, and shook a drop of Veritaserum into his mouth.

Then he took a drop himself.

“What are you doing?” asked Draco.

“Only fair,” said Harry. Draco blinked a little wildly.

“I don’t understand you,” he said.

Harry knelt by the sofa.

“Tell me your name.”

“Draco Malfoy.”

“Good. Now tell me your name is Terry Boot.”

Draco was familiar with the protocol. Harry wondered how many times he had been interrogated on Veritaserum.

“My name is—” Draco shook his head. “It’s working. Ask me about Adelaide.”

“Have you ever done anything illegal to or with your ward, Adelaide Lovell?”

“Yes,” said Draco immediately, then widened his eyes in horror as he continued to speak. “I drink with her sometimes. Wine with dinner.”

“Is that the full extent of any illegal or inappropriate activities?” asked Harry. He put his hand on Draco’s knee and stroked it, trying to reassure him. Draco didn’t seem to notice.

“I know she smokes sometimes and I don’t stop her. I let her get her belly-button pierced, she needed to get written consent, I don’t know if it was appropriate that I gave it. She’s allowed to have boys over for the night as long as they stay for breakfast. She—”

“Draco,” said Harry. “None of this is—you’re fine.”

Draco fell sideways onto the sofa arm and buried his face in it.

“I’m going to Hell,” he said again. On Veritaserum. Harry’s heart hurt.

“Oh, Draco,” he said. He took Draco’s gnarled right hand and acted on that old impulse, lovingly kissed each knuckle. “You’re not.”

“Will you help,” said Draco. “I’m sorry to bother you, I just didn’t know where else to go.”

“I’m so glad you came,” said Harry. “Of course I’ll help. Did she leave a note?”

Draco took his hand back, fumbled in his pockets, and pulled out a scrap of paper.

_Draco,_

_Please please don’t worry about me. Sam loves me and is going to take care of me now, and you can go be young and hot and have your twenties back. I will text soon!! I love you. Don’t be mad!_

_Adelaide_

“Who’s Sam?” asked Harry.

“I don’t _know_ ,” said Draco. “How can I not _know?”_

Harry could feel the Veritaserum wearing off.

“Draco, listen to me. I can’t lie, right?”

Draco looked at him, said nothing.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” said Harry. “I’m going to help you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“How can you say that, when you thought I was—” said Draco.

“I was falling for you,” said Harry, letting the last traces of Veritaserum carry him through. “I was falling for you, and I thought you were in love with someone else, and it just took my head a minute to catch up to the facts. That’s all.”

Draco closed his eyes.

“I can’t process that right now, I don’t think,” he said.

“Sorry,” said Harry. “You don’t have to. It doesn’t—” he tested the lie out “—matter.”

“What if something hurts her,” said Draco, in a small voice. Harry sat next to him on the sofa, and Draco nestled into him. Harry drew his arms around his body, pulled him close.

“I bet her friends will know who this Sam is,” he said. “Let’s go talk to them.”

“Will you come?”

Harry pressed his lips to Draco’s soft pale hair.

“Yes.”

***

“Barker,” said Fiona. “I think that’s his last name, isn’t it? Sam Barker.”

They stood outside the school building. Harry had gone to the headmaster, Confunded him into releasing Adelaide’s three closest friends, and brought them all out to join Draco outside the front steps.

“We’ve only met him once or twice,” said Ellie. “He wasn’t very friendly.”

“She asked us not to say anything,” said Tasha, to the other two.

“You’ve always been loyal, Tasha,” said Draco. “I appreciate it. But Adelaide might be in danger. Her safety’s more important than any promises you made her.”

Harry had insisted Draco borrow a jumper, and it was distracting, to see how Draco had already poked his thumbs through the holes in the sleeves, how he fiddled with the loose threads as he talked.

“How long has Adelaide been seeing this Sam Barker guy?” asked Harry. The girls all shrugged.

“We barely see her anymore,” said Ellie. “She’s obsessed with him. He told her to stop wearing makeup, so right away she stops wearing makeup. It’s pathetic.”

Next to him, Draco breathed in sharply. Harry reached out, meaning only to touch his arm, but Draco grabbed his hand. Harry squeezed it—gently, it was Draco’s right one—and Draco stroked his thumb back and forth over Harry’s knuckles.

“I don’t understand when she’s even had time to see him,” said Draco. “She’s been so busy with cooking club.”

“ _Cooking_ club?” said Fiona, then stopped, because Tasha had elbowed her in the ribs.

“Oh,” said Draco. “There is no cooking club.” He looked at Harry, as if he was trying to justify himself, as if he expected Harry to criticise him. “I thought she’d joined a cooking club.”

Harry asked the girls a few more questions. Draco seemed wholly incapable of saying anything else. He only stared at the concrete steps, looking as though he was running through a list of all the mistakes he’d ever made.

Harry had him wait outside the Police Station as he blagged his way in, using more spells than was technically legal. It was similar enough to the Auror department that he was able to find the files without too much difficulty. He located Sam Barker’s file, looked at the picture, checked the age. It matched up with everything Adelaide’s friends had said.

Draco stood exactly where Harry had left him, hunch-shouldered and small. He looked lost, and Harry’s sudden love for him was like anger.

“Come on,” he said, and Apparated them to Grimmauld Place. Draco stumbled when they landed, and Harry caught him by the waist. Draco wrapped his arms around Harry’s neck. They stood like that for a moment, one of Harry’s hands clutching Sam Barker’s file, the other flat against Draco’s back, holding him close.

Then Draco stepped away, and Harry followed him into the sitting room.

“Is that his file?” asked Draco.

“Yes,” said Harry, handing it over. Draco sat and opened it on the coffee table.

“He’s twenty-six,” he said, his fingers tracing over the mugshot. “Why does he have a mugshot? Everyone doesn’t have one, do they?”

“He was arrested for sexual assault two years ago. Charges were dropped,” said Harry.

“So he was innocent?” asked Draco hopefully.

“Er,” said Harry, “maybe. Probably not, honestly.”

Draco nodded. He looked so tired.

“All right,” he said. Then he put his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees. Harry reached over and rubbed his back, his hand moving slowly over the rough wool of his jumper. Draco held very still, but did not tell him to stop.

“I’ve got an idea,” said Harry. “But we’ll have to wait till night, because it involves breaking into the Department of Mysteries.”

“We’ll have to be careful,” said Draco, lifting his head to look at Harry. “I’ll be sent to Azkaban if I’m caught.”

“Oh, you are something else,” said Harry, desperately fond. “Obviously _you’re_ not going.”

Draco looked for a moment as if he was going to argue, then put his head back in his hands.

“All right. What are you stealing?”

“There’s an instrument they use to adjust the Trace on minors. I’m going to use it to find her.”

Draco sat up and turned to face Harry. Harry still had one hand on Draco’s back, so Draco’s movement brought him much closer than expected.

“Thank you,” said Draco.

“That’s okay,” said Harry, finding it quite hard to breathe. Draco’s face was so close.

Draco’s eyes roamed over him, grey and searching.

“That first time,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” said Harry automatically.

“Why were you like that? Why were you so—and then never again?”

Harry raised his hand very, very slowly. Touched Draco’s face. Draco’s eyes fell closed, and he breathed a shuddery sigh.

“It felt right,” said Harry. “Did it, to you?”

“Yes,” said Draco. Harry dragged his thumb over the corner of Draco’s mouth, and Draco moved his head a fraction, caught Harry’s thumb with his lips.

“I’ve never been able to stop thinking about you,” said Harry. “My whole life, it feels like.”

Draco opened his eyes and moved away.

“My therapist would suggest that’s not very healthy,” he said.

“It probably isn’t,” said Harry, with a hopeless sense that Draco would come back, if only Harry said the right thing. “I—I’ve not turned out to be very good at being an adult.”

“You’re doing all right,” said Draco, with a kind smile. It was shocking and wonderful that it didn’t look out of place. That Draco had grown up to be someone kindness suited, that Harry had been allowed to witness the change.

It was in many ways an awful afternoon, because Draco was so distracted and upset, and couldn’t seem to focus for more than a few minutes. But it was also rather similar to that magical first time, even though Harry didn’t so much as kiss Draco, knew better than to try. They got Thai takeaway and ate it on the floor of the sitting room, talking about strange, random things—Egyptian mummies and overfishing in the Atlantic, London versus the countryside, Quidditch.

“But you didn’t like LA,” said Draco, after they’d eaten. “You never talk about it.”

“It was all right,” said Harry. He paused. “They had these sex parties.”

“Stop,” said Draco, but he was smiling. “ _Werewolf_ sex parties?”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “It was practical!”

“You _went_?”

“Just to see!” said Harry, and Draco looked utterly delighted, an expression akin to the one he used to get when Harry failed in Potions, but different in some key way.

“ _Please_ , ‘just to see’, you are _rapacious_ ,” he said. The air seemed to grow thick between them. “You’re…”

Harry waited, but Draco didn’t finish his thought. His cheeks were pink.

“I’m…” prompted Harry.

Draco dropped his eyes.

“Clearly experienced,” he said.

“Ah,” said Harry. “That’s code for good, right? You think I’m good in bed?”

“We’ve not done much in a bed,” said Draco, fiddling with the lid of the green curry container.

“I am pretty experienced,” said Harry. “I’ve been with a lot of people—”

“Braggart.”

“—but no one like you,” Harry finished. Draco looked cautiously up. Harry met his gaze, feeling almost defiant.

“Well,” said Draco, trying to be light, but still watching Harry intently. “Hate sex, you know. It’s its own thing.”

“It was never hate sex, for me,” said Harry.

For a second, Harry thought Draco was going to lean forward and kiss him. Instead, he flopped onto his back on the carpet and said,

“Can you _only_ play Moonlight Sonata?”

“No,” said Harry. “I can play a bunch of stuff.”

“Rachmaninov, please,” said Draco, and Harry obediently went to the piano and butchered the Third Concerto with his sight-reading.

***

“That was quick,” said Draco, when Harry got back from the Department of Mysteries.

“Yeah,” said Harry, pushing his hair out of his face. “Yeah, you’d really think they’d be onto me by now.”

Draco rose onto his knees on the sofa.

“So? Did you find her?”

“Yes. She’s in South London, in a flat above a kebab shop.”

Draco stared at him for a moment. Harry resisted storming up to him, taking his face in his hands, touching his lips to the crease between Draco’s eyebrows.

“So we should go get her,” he said, instead.

“Yes, right,” said Draco, standing. Then, “she is… she is _alive_ , though.”

Harry couldn’t resist, this time. He came close, leant his forehead into Draco’s temple.

“Yes. She’s going to be fine. Let’s go get her.”

“Yes,” said Draco, one hand going to Harry’s waist, without Draco seeming to notice it. “Yes.”

They Apparated to the kebab shop and craned their necks, looking at the flat above. The light was on, the curtains drawn. It was ten o’ clock at night, by now, and the street lamps were on, the whole street yellowy with cheap flooded light.

Draco let himself into the peeling front door with a quick spell. The stairwell was dark, and smelled obscurely of mould. Harry followed Draco up the stairs with a rising sense of dread. The trace showed that Adelaide was _alive_ , but there was no saying in what state she would be in when they found her.

Draco unlocked the flat door with his wand and went inside.

Adelaide sat on a pleather sofa sleeper bed, painting her toenails. She looked up when they came in.

“ _Draco?_ What are you doing here?”

“You’re okay,” said Draco. “You’re all right?”

“What? Of course I am. I told you not to freak out!”

Harry privately felt that this was not a well-calculated remark. Draco’s face went red.

“Put your shoes on. We’re going,” he said, his voice almost trembling with anger.

“Oh my God. You’re seriously trying to go all Dad on me? Are you joking? I’m sixteen.”

“Where is he? ‘ _Sam_ ’?” Draco said it as if he suspected the name was an elaborate alias.

“He’ll be home any minute. And you need to go.”

“Why? Because he might get angry and hurt you?”

Adelaide lowered her nail varnish, looking exasperated.

“Will you stop being so dramatic? Sam is a really great guy. He would never hurt anyone.”

“If he’s so great, why has he practically kidnapped you and pulled you out of school?”

“Is that what this is about? You want me to keep learning fucking Intro to Herbology?”

“Jesus, Adelaide, it’s about you leaving me…!” Draco’s voice broke. “You didn’t text; you didn’t pick up your phone, you could have been dead in some back alleyway and I’d have no way of knowing, and you just—you _left—_ ”

Adelaide stood, her brows drawing together.

“Draco,” she said. “I wasn’t, like. Cutting you off. I just… Sam loves me.”

“ _I_ love you!” cried Draco, and Adelaide looked as if this was the last thing she had expected him to say.

“Well,” she said, then glanced over at Harry for the first time. “What’s _he_ doing here? You’re not letting him fuck you again, are you? Because he was a twat about it, last time.”

“Come home,” said Draco.

“We’re not, er,” said Harry. Draco threw him an annoyed look, like _not now, Potter_.

“I’m not coming back, Draco,” said Adelaide. “I’m sick of being a charity case, and with Sam—”

“You’re not a charity case, you’re my family, you fucking nut job!” said Draco, actually waving his arms in the air as he spoke, like there was no other way he could express the extent of his outrage.

The door opened, and Sam Barker walked in.

He was a rangy, muscly kind of guy, with a patchy beard and what he probably thought of as tasteful face tattoos. He frowned as he looked from Adelaide to Harry and Draco.

“Babe? Who are these men?”

“Sam, this is Draco. And his fuck buddy.”

“We’re not—” said Harry. “I mean, not that—”

Draco glared at him, and Harry shut up.

“Draco, eh?” said Sam, coming forward to look at Draco. Draco stood so straight that he appeared about three inches taller than usual, and his left hand was balled into a fist in the pocket of the jacket Harry had leant him, clenched around his wand. “So, you’re the man who was so keen on keeping Addy for himself.”

“I told you, Sam, it’s not like that,” said Adelaide.

“No,” said Draco. “It’s not like that with me and _Addy_. And you’ve been dating her since she was underage, so you and I are going to have some words.”

“We didn’t sleep together until my birthday,” said Adelaide.

“What a gentleman,” said Draco, showing too many teeth. Sam leant forward.

“Now that we’ve cleared that up, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Addy’s above the age of consent, and she’s here of her own free will because she got tired of your dick, so you can—”

Draco lost it.

“I’ve never _touched_ her!” he said, and shoved at Sam’s chest with both hands. It wasn’t very effective: Sam barely budged. It seemed, however, to trigger something in Sam, because he responded by grabbing Draco by the throat, picking him up, and slamming him repeatedly against the wall.

“Draco!” screamed Adelaide, at the same time as Harry said, “ _Stupefy!”_

Sam crumpled to the ground. So did Draco, smudging blood all down the wall. Harry rushed towards him, but Adelaide got there first.

“Draco, Draco, Draco, oh my God, oh my God,” she said, trying to get him to sit up, trying to see his face.

“Mmnnghh,” said Draco.

“You’re bleeding,” she said, her hands cradling his head, feeling for the wound. Draco had his eyes closed, and he was frighteningly pale, but he _smiled_.

“Head wounds always bleed a lot,” he slurred. And Adelaide, to Harry’s endless mystification, _laughed_.

“Let me see if I can heal it,” said Harry.

“Feel a bit sick,” said Draco.

“I think you have a concussion,” said Harry, and put his hand on Draco’s shoulder blade so that he sat a little forward. The back of Draco’s head was red and messy. Harry knew only rudimentary healing. He hoped it was enough for now: he cleaned away the blood, healed any bone fractures. “You need to go to St Mungo’s, they’ll fix you up in ten minutes.”

“He’s hurt his head before,” said Adelaide, panicked.

“After you,” Draco said, opening one dilated eye to look at Harry. “Tertius got—cross—after I saw you, that time.”

“You’re going to be just fine,” babbled Harry. “Adelaide, you need, can you, I need you to take him to St Mungo’s.”

“What about _him_ ,” said Adelaide, looking at Sam with marked dislike.

“I’ll take care of him,” said Harry darkly.

“Christ, Potter, don’t kill him,” drawled Draco, or tried to, but it came out rather drunken and confused. “He’s not your childhood nene—nemen— _rival_ , weeping in a girl’s loo.”

“Can you—can you just not, right now,” said Harry, “because you’re covered in blood and I—”

Draco closed his eye and reached blindly for Harry’s hand.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. Harry caught his hand and raised it to his mouth, kissed it.

Sam moaned.

“You should go. Hang on,” said Harry. He picked up Adelaide’s bottle of nail varnish and turned it into a Portkey without even using his wand. It was easy, effortless, because it was what Draco needed to get to safety. “Here, both of you touch this. I’ll join you at St Mungo’s.”

Adelaide was looking at Sam.

“You’re not really going to kill him, are you?” she asked.

“No. I’ll take him to the Aurors,” said Harry. It wasn’t the usual policy, but Harry would be able to show his memories of Sam attacking Draco, and get him put away without Adelaide having to testify.

“I thought…” she said, in a small voice, looking suddenly so very, very young. “I thought he seemed nice.”

* * *

It was almost offensive how quickly St Mungo’s treated him.

“You’ve had serious head trauma before,” said the Healer. “Have you been experiencing intense headaches?”

“Yes?” said Draco.

The Healer did some complicated wandwork around Draco’s head. Something wonderful and clean rushed to his brain: he found himself imagining rain on a drought-struck forest. The mists cleared, the pain vanished, his vision snapped into focus.

“Wow,” he said.

“Better?”

“Better?” said Draco in disbelief. “I feel fifteen again.”

The Healer frowned.

“That’s unusual. You think you’re fifteen?”

“No—no I only meant—I feel good, whole,” said Draco. “No, it’s good. Better.”

Adelaide told him that Harry had said he’d join them, but Draco was so tired, and Adelaide had black streaks of eyeliner all down her cheeks.

“Tell Harry Potter we’ve gone home,” he told the Welcome Witch. She perked right up.

“Harry Potter! Here!”

“Tell him I’ll be in touch soon,” said Draco, and took Adelaide home in a cab.

Somehow, they ended up sitting on her bed, eating Cadbury’s Fingers. It was late, and they were both tired, both still covered in Draco’s blood, but neither of them made any move to get ready for bed. They talked about nothing, about films, about music, about recipes. They didn’t look at each other. Draco lay diagonally across the bed, and Adelaide sat against the quilted headboard, her feet on Draco’s stomach. Only half her toenails were painted.

“Right, listen, I’ll give you one thing,” said Draco. The sky was beginning to lighten outside the window. “ _Coyote Ugly_ represents the boundless optimism of the year 2000.”

“Oh, stop, you always make it into some huge societal _thing_ ,” said Adelaide. “It’s just _fun,_ it’s so much more fun than _Gladiator_.”

“You like the music in _Gladiator_ ,” said Draco, scrabbling blindly for one of the last chocolate fingers. Adelaide nudged the box closer to him.

“I do,” she said.

“Harry plays the piano. He can sight read anything, it’s sort of amazing. Just give him the music, and he’ll play it. And he’s only been playing for like, two years; I mean the man’s a _freak_.”

Adelaide didn’t answer for a while. They only had her bedside table lamp on, the one with the pink shell-shaped lampshade, and the room glowed rose against the sunrise.

“He seemed pretty into you,” she said.

Draco blinked up at the ceiling.

“Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know. The novelty, maybe.”

It felt as if the temperature of the room had changed, as if the air quality had dipped.

“Sam didn’t want to sleep with me,” said Adelaide, quietly. “Not at first, not till I was sixteen. I thought…”

Draco covered her cold ankle with his hand. She took a deep breath.

“And he reminded me of Tertius, but he didn’t hit me. So. That was nice.”

“How did he remind you of Tertius?” asked Draco.

“Just little things. Like he liked to buy me things, and really really cared about me wearing them. Like, if I didn’t, he’d be so hurt.” She paused, then corrected herself. “Mad. He’d be mad.”

Draco squeezed her ankle.

“I just…” She spoke so slowly, as if she was deciding, with each word, whether to continue. “… I understood why he… wanted to take care of me. Like, what he got out of it. But with… you know, _you_ , for example…”

She drifted off.

“When I was fifteen I called my mum a stupid cunt,” said Draco. Adelaide gave a surprised laugh.

“Okay,” she said.

“She didn’t want me to join the Death Eaters. We kept fighting about it, and I said… a lot of stuff to her,” said Draco. “She cried a lot. I didn’t care, I told her she was being manipulative. I actually didn’t even remember that I’d called her that until later, when things were so bad, and I… anyway. Point is, I wanted to apologise, but I thought, maybe she doesn’t remember, and if I apologise, it will only remind her.”

“Do you think she did remember?” asked Adelaide, urgently, as if the answer was important.

“Definitely. Of course. No, she definitely remembered. But I didn’t apologise, and then she died.”

After a moment of quiet, Adelaide shifted on the bed so that she lay next to Draco, her head at his shoulder.

“But the thing is, Adelaide,” said Draco. He felt as if he were talking in a dream. He wasn’t even sure if it was okay to talk to her like this, so openly and vulnerably, whether it was unparental. His parents had certainly never talked to him like this. “I feel guilty about a lot of things. But I don’t really feel guilty about that.”

Adelaide’s voice was almost a whisper.

“Why not?”

“Because I know she forgave me. The minute I said it, she had already forgiven me. Because she loved me unconditionally.” He turned his head. She turned hers. They looked at each other for the first time since they had arrived home. “The way I love you,” said Draco.

Adelaide’s eyes were wide.

“Unconditionally?” she asked.

Draco nodded.

“Seems like a made-up Hollywood movie sort of thing,” she whispered.

“It’s not,” said Draco.

She chewed on the inside of her cheek.

“But I’m awful,” she said.

Draco smiled. The room was getting light enough that he could see the tired creases in her cream eyeshadow.

“Not to me,” he said.

Adelaide blinked too hard and a tear came racing over the bridge of her nose. She wiped at it distractedly.

“I promise not to call you a stupid cunt,” she said.

“Doesn’t matter if you do, really,” said Draco. “It won’t change anything.”

Adelaide gave a watery sort of laugh, then covered her face with her hands. Draco turned his head back to the ceiling to give her privacy.

“Hey, Adelaide,” he said. “Do you want to get a dog?”


	6. Chapter 6

Two days went by, and no word from Draco. Harry went over it all in his head and felt pretty sure he’d fucked it beyond repair. _I can’t process that right now, I don’t think_. Harry felt, perhaps irrationally, that this was all Dumbledore’s fault, or maybe the Dursleys’, or maybe Voldemort’s, or Rita Skeeter’s, or Andrew’s, or—

But mostly, he thought about Draco having sex for the first time, only to be treated like a criminal afterwards, and sent home to a concussion.

Harry played a lot of Prokofiev.

“Is… is everything okay?” asked Hermione, when she came to drop off a book she had borrowed. Harry continued stomping through a particularly furious Romeo and Juliet opus.

“Fine,” he said.

“Only it seems like you’re playing quite angry Russian music,” she said.

“Just expanding my repertoire,” said Harry, smashing violently at the keys.

Hermione left. Ron showed up ten minutes later and sat on the piano stool next to him. His body was soothing, and he didn’t say anything.

Harry came to the end of the piece and stopped his fingers.

“I’ve sort of been seeing Malfoy,” he said.

“I figured it was something like that,” said Ron. Harry swivelled to look at him.

“What?”

Ron looked alarmed.

“Sorry, was I not supposed to know?”

“How—”

“You were well into him in school,” said Ron, “and then it was so weird between you two at the Aurors, and you kept calling him Draco.”

Harry turned back to the piano, his eyes resting on the black and white keys that his fingers flew so easily, so painlessly over.

“What happened, there?” asked Ron.

“I’ve told him how I feel. He said he’d be in touch.”

“How long’s it been?”

“A century, give or take,” said Harry.

Ron reached out a hand and pressed down a white key with his index. It made a soft, high sound.

“You’ve sort of always been circling each other, though, haven’t you,” he said.

Harry nodded.

“Feels that way.”

“Hermione reckons he’d be crazy not to like you back,” said Ron.

“Hermione knows??”

Ron just looked at him. Harry laughed and shook his head.

“Right. Yeah. Of course.”

They didn’t talk about it anymore, for which Harry was grateful. Hermione came back, and she and Ron slept over that night, quieting the anxious pain in Harry’s muscles.

***

Draco didn’t come by until Thursday. Harry beckoned him in with what he hoped was a courteous and not desperate gesture, and Draco very formally gave him the vial of weekly potion.

“Dinsmore said you already paid?” he said.

“Oh, yeah,” said Harry. Draco must have been all right, because his hand was glamoured, and his hair neatly styled, and he looked absolutely untouchable. “Yeah, I thought it would be, just, easier.”

Draco gave him a hard look.

“Thanks,” he said, then took a deep breath and walked into the sitting room. “Unfortunately, I do still need to ask you for money.”

“Oh, uh, sure, whatever you need,” said Harry instinctively. “Er—what _do_ you need it for?”

Draco’s posture was very straight. He stood by the piano, his warped hand on the keys, not quite pressing them.

“I wouldn’t ask, for myself,” he said. Then looked at Harry expectantly, as if waiting for Harry to laugh and say _yeah you would, you spoiled brat,_ and hex him.

“So,” said Harry, “for Adelaide?”

“I’ll pay you back,” said Draco, quickly.

“You don’t have to,” said Harry, going to the desk by the window and pulling out his Muggle check book.

“It might take me a few years, but I’m due for a pay rise at the shop, if Dinsmore—well. And if he doesn’t, then I’ll find some other—”

“Here,” said Harry, handing Draco a blank check, already signed. “Just fill out the amount you need.”

Draco’s eyes bulged.

“Harry,” he said, staring at the check, and Harry waited for him to finish—it seemed to him that any sentence beginning with Draco saying his first name like that was probably a sentence he wanted to hear—but Draco didn’t say anything else. Just folded the check very, very carefully and put it in his inside coat pocket.

“Will you stay for a drink, or…?” asked Harry, even though he’d told himself a second before that he wouldn’t push.

“No, I ought to go sort this out,” said Draco, patting the pocket with the check in it. He flashed a distracted smile. “I want to send Adelaide to rehab. There’s this private one not too far away that I think she’d be less likely to hate than the others, but I couldn’t… so. Thank you. I wouldn’t have asked if it was for me.”

“I know you wouldn’t have,” said Harry. They stood a few feet from each other, and Harry knew he was staring too hard, but he couldn’t stop.

“What you said, the other day,” said Draco, dropping his eyes from Harry’s face. “About… falling.”

Harry nodded, his mouth tight, waiting.

“I haven’t had a chance to…” said Draco. “It’s all been quite, Adelaide-heavy. But I was wondering, it would help me figure out—if I knew more precisely what it is that you want.”

That was easy.

“You,” said Harry, and Draco’s eyes flitted to his, dark and unreadable. “Or, you know, if that’s not what you want,” Harry hastened to add, “then just… for things to be less hard for you.”

Draco was still, but his breathing had quickened. Harry took a step forward.

“For you to let me make things less hard for you,” he said.

Draco closed the gap between them, threading his arms around Harry’s waist and pressing his face into Harry’s neck, and Harry clutched him back. He didn’t speak. He tried to say what he meant with his arms, with the way he held Draco, so close and so tight, precious and priceless and beloved.

Draco stayed in his arms for a long time, much longer than a hug. It was the length of a realisation. When he pulled away, he looked stunned.

 _I love you_ , Harry didn’t say, but he could see that Draco knew he wasn’t saying it, because he continued to look at Harry as if he was something quite new and unexpected.

“Right,” said Draco. “I’d, I’d better go.”

Harry stayed silent. Draco reached out and touched his scar with his ruined finger. Harry’s eyes fluttered shut.

“I never thought it was fair, that you were so good looking,” said Draco. Harry laughed incredulously, and when he opened his eyes, Draco was smiling.

“You hid that well,” said Harry.

“Mmm,” said Draco, his eyes still too intent, too serious, even as he smiled.

“Next week?”

“Yes,” said Draco. “See you then.”

* * *

No one had hugged Draco like that since his mother died. No one had held Draco so securely and definitely, only because he needed it. He went home and watched Adelaide make lasagna and wondered how that moment of perfect affection might be distilled into language.

He suspected he knew. It was only that it seemed so improbable, impossible, for his life to hold a turn like that, a miracle bolt of lightning out of a clear blue sky. And yet.

***

Adelaide was quiet as they packed her bags.

“All the heroin addicts are going to think I’m a loser,” she said.

***

The rehab facility was very clean and very new. The teenagers smoking in the courtyard looked Adelaide up and down with mild curiosity. Her face closed. Draco wished, sometimes, that she hadn’t become beautiful until she was grown.

To Draco’s very great relief, the woman who took Adelaide to her dorm was… cool. She was pretty, not much older than Draco, and had tattoos on her hands. Draco could see Adelaide deciding not to hate her.

“You understand that you can’t have contact with anyone outside the facility for the first four weeks,” the woman said, and Draco and Adelaide both nodded.

“I’ll write,” said Draco. “As soon as it’s allowed.”

“And when I come out, we’ll get Shark,” said Adelaide. Shark was to be their dog. Adelaide had announced it at breakfast, that first morning after Sam.

Draco kissed her goodbye and went back to his empty, empty flat. He drifted into Adelaide’s room and leaned in the doorway. She was sixteen; he wouldn’t even have her for much longer. He tried not to mind.

***

Pansy Parkinson arrived on his doorstep the next morning.

“ _Pans?_ ”

“Happy to see me?”

“Come here!”

She looked good, he decided, as he made her tea. Crazy, but good. She wore a see-through dress that showed her nipples and a fox fur coat and extremely expensive-looking boots. She lounged in his spindly Ikea kitchen chair, watching him with undisguised pleasure.

“I’ve missed you,” she said.

“I’ve missed _you_ ,” said Draco. “I thought you’d married a Brazilian polo player.”

“Rafael is a dear,” said Pansy, “and so is his wife, it transpires.”

“Ah,” said Draco, with a laugh. “What a scoundrel.”

“Anyway,” sighed Pansy, “I met an ever-so-nice French Muggle who has some sort of fashion house. I don’t know, I just wear the clothes.”

“Naturally.”

“You’re hard to find,” said Pansy, her voice suddenly arch.

“I’m not really in contact with anyone from before.”

“Mm,” said Pansy. “You know, I’ve got a boyfriend.”

“I hope he’s worthy.”

“What I mean is, I’m not here to throw myself at you. You didn’t have to _hide_.”

Draco almost dropped the mug of tea he was bringing her.

“ _Hide_? Pansy, I’ve—” he stopped. Put the mug down, smoothed his clothes. “You can’t _possibly_ imagine how glad I am to see you,” he said, when he was sure of himself.

“Oh,” said Pansy quietly. He had forgotten how well she knew him. She reached out for his hand like a lizard catching a fly with its tongue.

“What happened?” she asked, examining the twisted joints.

So Draco told her.

He had never really told anyone, not like that, not someone who listened carefully and made upset sounds and told him it was fucked-up and not his fault and even cried a little—in the just the right places—when Draco described Adelaide drunkenly trying to seduce him, for example. When he tried to tell her about Harry, however, he found he couldn’t—the contract bound his tongue, and the story dried up. He wondered if Harry realised, if it was a mistake, or if it was a sign that Harry wanted him privately, where no one would find out about it.

They ended up on the sofa, the way they used to sit in Slytherin, Pansy stroking his hair, telling him that he had been horribly treated and that everyone ought to feel very sorry for him. He smiled through it, dazed, still, by her return. It felt as if she had brought him back a piece of himself, clicked it into place. Looped him back to the Draco who’d been popular once, and happy, and sure-footed.

* * *

On Thursday, Harry opened the front door as if he had been standing by it, waiting for Draco to knock.

“Hi,” he said, breathless. His hair was wild, so black. Draco had always privately felt that people with Harry’s colouring aged better, and it was dreadful how Harry only seemed to grow more thoroughly, unconsciously handsome with each passing week.

Draco held out the potion. Harry took it.

“Come in, come in,” he said. Draco obeyed and hovered in the hallway as Harry closed the door and turned to look at him.

Draco stepped forward and put one hand softly on Harry’s collar bone, stilling him. Harry was watching as if at any moment he thought Draco would do something extraordinary.

All week, Draco had been thinking of this. He had imagined Harry falling on him, kissing him vividly, angrily, the way he did when Draco first began delivering his potions. He imagined pushing Harry back, forcing him against a wall, and taking the kiss from him. But Harry was perfectly quiet, anticipatory, over-ready. When Draco dipped his head slightly forward—an infinitesimal degree—Harry’s face plummeted forward, closing the distance between them.

They both hitched, two inches apart. They both paused. Draco had his eyes on Harry’s mouth, but when he looked up, Harry met his gaze solemnly. It was the solemnity in his expression that persuaded Draco to tip forward those last two inches.

Their lips touched softly, tingling and sensitive, so little needed—each movement huge because of the attention it commanded. Harry’s hands went to Draco’s back, but they moved slowly, and the pressure was so light, as if Draco was something peerless, that must be handled carefully or not at all. Draco, for his part, had his fingers in Harry’s dark hair, feeling the elegant curve of his skull, the strength of him, the wholeness.

They leant their foreheads together, breaking the kiss. Harry made a laughing sound, but Draco’s eyes flicked to the staircase. Harry caught it, of course.

He kissed Draco rather perfunctorily and then drew him up the stairs, eager-eyed. Draco laughed and followed. He paused at the bedroom door.

“Is this all right?” asked Harry. Draco nodded. It was the loveliest room in the world, just then.

They lay on their sides on the bed, their kisses straying lazily from each other’s mouths. Harry kissed Draco’s eyebrows, the corners of his eyes, the hollow under his ear lobe. He paused at Draco’s hairline.

“May I touch your hair?”

“Please,” said Draco. “It always bothered me that you wouldn’t, when I—”

“But you said,” said Harry, sliding his fingers over Draco’s scalp, brushing a kiss onto Draco’s temple. “The first time you delivered the potion—you said not to touch—”

“Oh…!” said Draco, astonished. Then he laughed, a whole anxiety melting away in one moment. Harry’s hands in his hair, worshipful. “I was wearing hair gel that day. I thought you’d… make a personal remark.”

Harry laughed into Draco’s neck.

“How stupid,” he said. “I could have been touching you all along.”

Then he began to slip down.

“Wait,” said Draco. Harry looked up. _Such black eyes,_ thought Draco, rather stupidly. _Where’s the green._ “Wait,” said Draco again, hesitant, unsure. “Would you…” he licked his lips.

“What,” said Harry.

“That first time, you said… It was about trust. Would you… let me?”

Harry’s smile spread steadily.

“Yeah,” he said. “Yes. Good idea.”

* * *

Harry was still under him, his face buried in the pillow, his back sweaty, but he did his wandless magic to clean up the mess, all the same.

“It’s so hot when you do that,” Draco mumbled into his neck. Harry turned his head so that they were cheek to cheek.

“Really?”

Draco nodded into his skin.

“It drove me crazy, that you kept doing it.”

He felt Harry smile against his face, and realised he was probably squashing him. He slid off him, and they both turned onto their sides, facing each other.

“Did I hurt you?” asked Draco.

“No,” said Harry.

“Liar.”

Harry put a hand possessively on Draco’s hip, drew it up his side.

“I’ve only ever let one other person do that. My ex,” he said.

“I’m honoured,” said Draco.

“We dated for half a year, right before I met you, that time in the market,” said Harry. He said it with an odd intensity that suggested to Draco it was important he listen, despite how mellow his body felt, and how enticingly sleep beckoned.

“So I was your rebound?”

Harry nodded.

“Why did you break up?” asked Draco.

For an answer, Harry got out of bed, stuck his hand under the mattress, and pulled out a weathered copy of _Witch Weekly._ Draco looked up at him inquisitively as Harry passed it to him. Harry jutted his chin towards the magazine. _Look_.

 _EXCLUSIVE: HARRY POTTER’S LOVER TELLS ALL!_ said the front cover, splashed over a black and white picture of Harry looking much as he did now: topless and sex-tousled, except that Harry in the picture was completely relaxed in his pillows. Not a photoshoot: a candid, an intimate one, and although it didn’t show anything, it was a violation.

“Read it,” said Harry.

“I don’t want to,” said Draco, giving it back to him. “I’d rather you told me.”

A muscle in Harry’s jaw twinged. He took the magazine, flicked it expertly to the page he wanted, and began to read.

 _“‘It’s not that he’s a poor lover,’ says Andrew. ‘It’s that he’s an incapable one. I don’t mean that cruelly, I mean that there’s no chance someone like that can recover from what he lived through. The things he experienced left their mark, and he’ll be paying the price for the rest of his life._ ”

Draco, ever the Slytherin, was trying to figure out what on earth could have compelled Andrew to do such a thing.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “ _How_ could he have thought this was a good idea?”

Harry shrugged, not looking at him.

“No, I’m serious,” said Draco. “There’s no way _Witch Weekly_ gave him more money than he would have got if he had married you.”

Harry was still flipping through the magazine, searching for quotes.

“He wanted to break up with me anyway,” he said. “Why not make a bit of cash while he was at it?”

“Short-sighted,” said Draco. “Your social cachet is worth much more than a thousand Galleons, and there’s no way they paid him more than that.”

“ _‘Potter’s sexual appetites—’”_ began Harry, but Draco stood, took the magazine out of his hands, and put a hand on Harry’s neck.

“Harry,” he said. “Don’t.”

Harry lowered his eyes.

“Here’s a question,” said Draco. “Why do you keep that _under your mattress_?”

“So I won’t look at it too much.”

“Right. That’s bonkers, and I’m taking it away from you.”

“No,” said Harry, looking up, alarmed, “because sometimes—”

“—you pull it out and remind yourself of how bitterly you were betrayed by someone you loved? Yeah, I know. That’s what my idiot therapist, Kevin, would call _itching the wound._ ”

Harry leant forward, and Draco caught him, pulled him close.

“I’m sorry your ex was a short-sighted, scheming twat,” Draco said into his ear. “That’s absolutely shit.”

“He was right, though,” said Harry.

“‘ _Incapable lover’_?” asked Draco. “I don’t know who _he_ was shagging; you’re upsettingly good at sex. Really.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve never had any problems on that front, with you,” said Harry. Draco beamed.

“Because I’m very handsome!” he said. But Harry didn’t laugh.

“I think because you were so—because you’re embedded into my life. It was always going to make more sense with you than with _some guy_ , because you were a part of me, already.”

Draco put the back of his hand on Harry’s forehead. Harry laughed and shook away.

“Don’t fucking _check me for fever_ ,” he said.

“What I’m hearing is that you only want to fuck people you’ve known since you were eleven,” said Draco. “Have you considered Madam Hooch? Because she is _dishy_.”

Harry was serious again. He shuffled forward, so that they were pressed together, skin on skin all up and down their bodies. He dropped his lips to the dip of Draco’s collarbone and spoke against it.

“You do know, don’t you?” he said. “How I feel about you.”

Draco kissed the nearest part of Harry, which was his ear.

“Yes,” he said, and Harry shuddered into him. “But… Adelaide is my priority right now.”

Harry looked up.

“What are you saying?”

“Just…” Draco wanted to push him back into bed and roll on top of him, claim every inch of him. “That I don’t know. I don’t know how she’ll feel, and I won’t do anything that makes her uncomfortable. And I won’t lie to her, so don’t suggest that.”

“I wasn’t going to,” said Harry, offended. Then he sighed. “She doesn’t like me.”

“She doesn’t like anyone much, at first,” said Draco. “But yeah, she’s not keen on you. So I can’t, you know, I can’t predict what I can give you, right now.”

Harry nodded.

“That’s okay,” he said. “I’ll wait.”

“… wait…?”

Harry flushed red.

“Unless that was your way of letting me down gently?” he asked. “I just meant… she’ll be going to uni in a few years, right? So we could always see, then. If you wanted.”

“Oh,” said Draco blankly. “Yes.” He shook his head. “Anyway, we have three months, now.”

“Okay,” said Harry, nudging at Draco’s nose and kissing him. “Three months.”

They had sex again, then fell asleep, and when Draco woke up, it was five in the morning. He kissed Harry awake.

“Hey,” said Harry, with a sleepy smile.

“Hey,” said Draco. “I should go. I have to be at work in three hours.”

“But you’re so warm,” said Harry.

“Persuasive,” said Draco, “but not enough.”

Harry sat up a little, squinting.

“Dinner tonight,” he said.

“Yes,” said Draco. “I’ll see you this evening.”

“Okay,” said Harry, sinking back into the bed. “You can go, then.”

“Thanks, Your Majesty,” said Draco, kissing him once more before leaving.

***

“Has something happened?” asked Cynthia, before biting into her cheese and tomato sandwich.

“Hmm?”

“You’re smiling a lot,” said Cynthia.

“Oh,” said Draco. “No, nothing’s happened. Just in a good mood, I suppose.”

Cynthia nodded—this was the sort of answer that was always completely satisfactory to her—and wiped a bit of tomato off her chin with a paper napkin.

***

Harry was wearing a button-down shirt and Draco just about lost it.

“I’ve worn button-down shirts before,” said Harry, bemused, as Draco touched him all over—Harry’s biceps dipping under the ironed cotton sleeves, his chest revealed by the undone top button, his neck against the slightly starched collar.

“Not since school,” said Draco.

Harry laughed at him.

“We’re going to be late,” he said. “I have a reservation.”

“Oh, who cares,” said Draco. “You’re Harry Potter, they’ll get you any table you want. I want to fuck you while you wear this.”

Harry took Draco’s hands and removed them gently but firmly from their adventuring.

“It’s a Muggle restaurant.”

 _Ah_ , thought Draco, _of course._

It was a nice place. The waiter brought them wine to taste before pouring. The portions were small and expensive.

“Makes me nostalgic,” said Draco.

“Fancy stuff makes you nostalgic?” asked Harry.

“Mmm,” said Draco, looking around. “This is what I thought my life would be like.”

The look Harry gave him was Pansyish in its inexplicable and undeserved sympathy.

***

The next day, to Draco’s very great surprise, Harry showed up at Dinsmore’s at five, fists in pocket, coat collar turned up against the wind.

“Mr Potter!” said Dinsmore. “What a pleasure! What can I do for you?”

Harry looked over Dinsmore’s shoulder and caught sight of Draco, coming out of the back.

“Just here for Draco. Hi!”

“Hi,” said Draco, coming to join him. Dinsmore looked as if he had just realised he was the villain in someone else’s story and didn’t like it one bit.

“Is there a problem?” he asked hopefully. Harry smiled at Draco.

“No, we just had plans,” he said. “Ready?”

“Ready,” said Draco.

At the Muggle cocktail bar, Harry said, “I usually have dinner with Ron and Hermione on Saturdays, do you want to come?”

Draco swallowed a bit of peanut down the wrong pipe and coughed for what felt like twenty-five minutes as Harry slammed on his back.

“Er,” said Draco, when he could breathe again. “I was under the impression this was a secret shag on the side deal.”

Harry looked nonplussed.

“Really?”

“Well. I can’t talk about you to anyone, because of the contract,” said Draco. “So I figured—”

“Oh, fuck, no,” said Harry. “Yeah no that’s not—”

“I wasn’t sure if it was a mistake or a—”

“No, no, I feel quite, er, rooftop-shouty about you,” said Harry. His face took on a worried look. “I hope that’s okay.”

“No, that’s—that’s fine,” said Draco, trying to tamp down his wholly excessive joy. “Shout away. So I can tell Pansy?”

Harry grinned and slouched forward on one elbow.

“What would you tell her?”

“That I’m sleeping with an arrogant prat,” said Draco, but then Harry looked disappointed, so he added, “I don’t know, that we’re… seeing each other?”

Harry perked up.

“Yeah,” he said. “That sounds right, doesn’t it?”

“Appropriately vague.”

“But official, too,” said Harry. He stirred his drink with his straw. “I don’t know, I don’t want it to sound like we’re just shagging, or whatever.”

Draco extended his leg under the table, pressed it against Harry’s.

“When Adelaide gets back…” he said.

“I know,” said Harry, quickly. “But until then.”

***

“But until then” turned out to be Harry’s answer to a lot of things. When Adelaide came back, Draco would have to move out of Grimmauld Place, but until then… When Adelaide came back, Harry would stop coming by Dinsmore’s at lunch with take-out from Draco’s favourite restaurant, but until then… When Adelaide came back, they wouldn’t spend whole weekends in bed, sex-drunk and lazy, tender and playful, never quite saying they loved each other—but until then…


	7. Chapter 7

The dinner with Draco, Ron and Hermione was exactly as awkward as Harry had thought it would be. Draco showed up at Grimmauld Place with two bouquets of flowers and two bottles of wine.

“Which do you think Granger would prefer?” he asked. “Ah—that’s another thing, should I start calling her Hermione, all of a sudden? Develop some charming nickname? How do you think she’d take to _Minnie_?”

“Badly,” said Harry. “You didn’t have to bring flowers.”

Draco looked horrified.

“Is it pretentious?”

“What? No,” said Harry. “She’ll love them. Next time, bring Ron some Firewhisky, he’ll love you forever. For some reason he can’t bring himself to buy it for himself, it’s like he still thinks he’s fifteen.”

Draco nodded determinedly.

“I’ll go buy some now,” he said.

“Draco. Stop being crazy.”

Draco pressed his hands to his eyes.

“Sorry,” he said.

“I’ve told them a lot about you,” said Harry. “They’re not expecting you to come in all, _My father will hear about this_.”

“He’s dead,” said Draco, through his hands.

“Right. You need a drink,” said Harry.

“I’m fine. I think maybe I need to put my head in a bucket of ice water.”

Harry laughed, but Draco turned out to be quite serious. He filled a mixing bowl with ice and water and told Harry to time him.

“This is…” said Harry.

“No, it’s a thing,” said Draco. “My idiot therapist, Kevin, told me about it. It’s been proven by all sorts of scientists.”

“To do _what_?”

“I think it makes you think you’re dying, and then you, uh, then you feel better. It’s… _science._ ” He said the word _science_ the way a child might say the word _magic_.

“Whatever you need,” said Harry, charmed.

And indeed, Draco did seem calmer when he emerged, teeth chattering, from the icy water. He dried his face on a tea towel and smiled grimly at Harry.

“All right,” he said. “I’m ready.”

***

Ron stuck out a hand to be shaken the moment they stepped through the floo. Draco took it with the gravity of a general leading his army into battle, then handed him the wine bottle.

“And these are for you,” he said, passing the flowers to Hermione.

“Oh, they’re lovely!”

Draco shifted on his feet.

“What would you like me to call you?” he asked. “I wasn’t sure what was best.”

“Hermione is fine,” said Hermione, a small crease appearing in between her eyebrows. Draco nodded soberly and turned to Ron.

“Ron?” said Ron, not sounding very sure about it.

“Ron,” said Draco, like a king bestowing a title.

Draco tried to help around the kitchen, but he was clumsier than normal, and kept knocking things over with his right hand. Eventually Hermione touched him gently on the shoulder and said,

“Sit down, won’t you?”

And Draco went, looking like a scolded dog. Harry sat next to him.

“You’re okay,” Harry whispered to him. Draco smiled at him rather sadly.

Dinner table conversation was stilted in patches. It was fine when Harry spoke to Ron and Hermione about Ron and Hermione things, and it was fine when Harry spoke to Draco about Draco things, but any attempt at a conversation that included all four of them at once was a monumental failure.

Draco leapt to his feet the moment Hermione put down her fork and began clearing the table. He misjudged, of course, and gripped Harry’s plate with the wrong hand, letting it fall to the ground, where it smashed into shards. Draco stood still as stone, looking at the mess in what Harry recognised as _fear_.

Hermione waved her wand and the disorder disappeared.

“I never thought I’d say this, but you need a house-elf, Draco,” she said. Harry rose and put an arm around Draco. He was shivering.

“Come sit,” he said into Draco’s ear, and Draco did as he was told.

“Sorry,” he muttered, then winced. Harry knew him well enough by then to understand why: Draco hadn’t apologised for anything that mattered, and he hated for this to be the way the word first made its appearance.

Although Ron and Hermione were both making a huge effort to be friendly, it wasn’t until Ron tried to talk about Adelaide over dessert that any of their attempts hit their mark.

“How’s that girl you look after?” asked Ron. “Adelaide, right?”

Draco lit up.

“Oh, she’s—well, she’s having a rough go of it, just now, but she’ll be all right. She’s only sixteen, you know, and she’s making all sorts of mistakes that she’ll regret later, but once you know how she came to them, you can’t help but understand.”

“She’s in rehab, isn’t she?” asked Hermione. Draco frowned at Harry.

“You shouldn’t tell people,” he said. “She wouldn’t like it.” Then he looked to Ron and Hermione, easier than before. “She thinks of it as _her_ trouble, not mine. She doesn’t realise that her trouble _is_ mine.”

“Sorry,” said Harry, “you’re right, I shouldn’t have, I didn’t think.”

“It’s fine. Just,” he spoke to Ron and Hermione, “if you ever meet her, maybe don’t bring it up until she does.”

“Of course,” said Hermione. “It sounds as if you’re very close.”

“Oh, well, it’s hard to be really close to a teenager,” he said. “But we get on.” He paused. “Do you two like children?”

“Once they can talk,” said Hermione.

“I only like them _until_ they can talk,” said Ron. “After that they’re a right pain, from what I can see.”

“How well-matched you are,” said Draco. “I do wonder about—well, if I had had Adelaide from the beginning, how different she would be. Maybe not at all. I’m not sure she’s someone who can be influenced. She’s too much herself.”

“I think you’ve had a huge impact on her,” said Harry, then, to Ron and Hermione. “Draco adopted her when he was only nineteen.”

“I didn’t adopt her,” said Draco quickly. “And it was, you know, it’s been a huge mess. I think almost anyone else would have done a better job. But she’s…” He drifted off, staring into space with a quiet smile. “She’s just good, really.” He snapped back to his usual, slightly worried expression. “Sorry, I get very tedious when I talk about her.”

They moved on to other subjects, and Draco sank into a thoughtful silence. He handled his spoon badly. He was such a neat eater usually, but his nerves seemed to have impacted his ability to counter the stiffness in his fingers.

He did not say anything else until long after everyone had finished eating.

“… I tried to take Ron to a church once, but he complained the entire time,” said Hermione. Draco jolted upright.

“A church? Why would _you_ two need to go there?” he asked.

Hermione’s open expression dimmed slightly.

“We were sight-seeing. Why, is that so surprising?”

“But…” said Draco. He could clearly see that he had misstepped, that Hermione thought he was about to insult her. “… but aren’t churches where Muggles go to think about what Hell will be like?”

Hermione was touchier than she would be if she hadn’t had two glasses of wine.

“You think all Muggles are going to hell?”

“No,” said Draco, “not at all, I just don’t understand why _you_ would need to go.”

“Have you ever been to a church, Draco?” asked Hermione.

“Yes,” said Draco. “There’s one near my flat, I go sometimes.”

He didn’t seem to realise what he had just confessed, but Hermione did.

“Oh,” she said, her eyes softening with pity. “Well, I’m not religious, but it’s not just about hell. In fact, I think it’s mainly about heaven, and God.”

Draco nodded as if he understood.

“Yes, I think Dante talks about those a bit,” he said.

“Muggles are weird,” said Ron. “Isn’t hell just a pit of fire they tell kids they’ll go to if they’re bad?”

“Eternal damnation,” said Draco. He had an awful look on his face, as if he could see what he was talking about, as if he _knew_. “I always imagine the Room of Requirement.”

A long and horrible silence passed. Harry pressed his leg against Draco’s under the table, but Draco didn’t seem to notice.

“What are you doing on Sunday?” asked Hermione.

Draco blinked, coming back to earth.

“Did we have any plans, Harry?”

“Just hanging out,” said Harry.

“In that case, Draco, I’d like to take you to a church service. I think you’ll find it interesting,” said Hermione.

“Whatever you like,” said Draco. “I’m sure you’re right.”

Ron shook Draco’s hand again at the end of the evening, but Hermione kissed him on the cheek.

“See you on Sunday,” she said.

***

In bed that night, Draco was manic, feverish.

“Hey,” said Harry, trying to slow him. “Hey, you were so great tonight. I really appreciated it.”

“I broke a plate,” said Draco.

“You were perfect,” said Harry. “They liked you. I promise.”

But Draco only shook his head.

“I’m so fucking clumsy,” he said. “Tertius always said—”

“You’re perfect,” said Harry. “I… you’re perfect to me.”

“Haaa,” said Draco, shivering slightly.

“Draco… did you ever… talk to anyone? About Tertius?”

Draco nodded. His forehead was shiny with sweat.

“With my idiot therapist, Kevin.” He grimaced. “It’s all we talked about for the first year. It was bloody awful. I supposed it helped. I’m usually better than this. I’m fine, actually.”

But he tossed and turned, and finally Harry got them both out of bed. They went to the sitting room, and Draco lay on the hearthrug, and Harry played Bach’s Goldberg Variations until Draco fell asleep, right there on the floor.

* * *

Draco left Harry in bed on Sunday morning and went to meet Hermione at a cathedral in central London. He’d never been inside.

“Thirteenth century,” said Hermione, as they walked through the carved stone arches. Hermione kept up a steady stream of facts as they found their way to a pew, for which Draco was grateful, because his heart was beating too hard and he would have found it impossible to behave normally. The close association he had built between churches and terror was not one he suspected Hermione could break, no matter how much she knew about medieval building techniques.

The service began. Draco did not understand most of it, but he liked the smell of candles and stone. He wondered if he could find some way to capture that mingled perfume, to catch it in oil and give it to Adelaide: a cathedral, just for her.

It was harder to be frightened when his thoughts kept getting interrupted by having to stand or sit or kneel. Hermione glanced at him continually, and he did not know what she made of his face. Had she expected some grandiose conversion? Draco listened to the prayers, to the fervent promises to some magical, all-knowing father, and did not feel much comfort.

Then, forty minutes in, just as Draco’s thoughts had begun to stray inexorably back to flames and endless pain, the choir stood to sing.

It was a strange, ethereal sound; exquisitely dissonant, piercingly beautiful. Draco pressed forward in the pew, clutching at the hymn book, listening as if the music were instructions from someone far greater, far wiser than himself. He could not understand the words, except one that was repeated in high delicacy: _lux_.

 _Light_ , it meant, he knew enough Latin to know that. _Light_ , they sang, in their inhuman voices, the warm, slow, golden notes soaring through the fluted vaults of stone, and there was no touch of suffering to it. It was high and pure and generous, the music of forgiveness. It fell on his heart like a silence: clean as snow. As he listened, his eyes came alive, and he noticed for the first time how the light flowed through the glowing stained glass windows with a tranquility that he could only have described as _magic_. _Magic_ the way Muggle-borns described it, when they first came to Hogwarts, _magic_ , something indescribable, unearthly, beyond human comprehension. He realised, too, that magic was not something wizards understood: because magic came from the sublime acceptance of one’s own ignorance.

He felt ignorant, as the music slowed and softened to its shadowy close. He felt the futility of trying to predict what would happen to him. Something lifted in his chest, the part of him that had thought it knew what was in store.

He looked at Hermione, expecting her to look back at him with wonder—it seemed impossible that everyone around him had not been shaken by the choir’s singing—but Hermione was only curious.

“Are you okay?” she asked him.

“Yes,” said Draco feverishly, “yes.”

The service did not go on much longer, and Draco barely noticed its passing. He was clear-eyed with humility. It was impossible to know what was to come. He was not destined for suffering, simply because of what had been.

Hermione did not talk as they left the cathedral with the rest of the crowd, but she threaded her arm through his, and he smiled at her. He really thought he loved her, then.

“You liked it,” she said. It was such a feeble assessment that it took him a few seconds to answer.

“It was beautiful,” he said. “Thank you.”

Hermione stopped walking. They stood just outside a small green park, and people bustled past them.

“Almost every belief system makes room for redemption,” she said. “For remorse, and forgiveness.”

Draco could feel the lightness seeping away, could feel his fears and doubts descending on him, as if they had been only briefly lessened by some benevolent force that could not always be there to protect him.

“Whose forgiveness?” he asked.

Hermione’s eyes were so kind.

“Whose do you need?” she asked, and he had no answer for her. She laid her hand on his arm. “Why don’t you figure that out? Because if it’s mine you’re looking for, and Harry and Ron’s, you must know you have it already.”

Draco managed a small smile.

“Aren’t you good,” he said. “Is it wonderful? Being good?”

Hermione's warm fingers pressed his arm slightly, as if she were trying to give him something.

“You tell me,” she said.

* * *

Draco looked different when he returned from church: thoughtful, and rather calmer than usual.

“So, how was it? Are you religious now?” asked Harry.

“No,” said Draco, sounding rather defensive. Then, quieter: “Maybe. I don’t think so. Maybe a bit.”

Later, when Harry was playing the piano, Draco came up behind him and leant his sharp elbows on Harry’s shoulders.

“Sometimes I think I’m arrogant even when I’m insecure,” he said. Harry didn’t stop playing.

“Yeah?”

Draco nodded into the top of Harry’s head.

“Yeah. Like the arrogance of thinking _you’re_ the worst person who ever lived. It’s quite self-aggrandising, really.”

“Better beat yourself up over that too, then,” said Harry.

Draco laughed, kissed his neck.

“This is nice,” he said, “what is it?”

“Just Bach.”

“It’s nice.”

It was.

* * *

Draco told Pansy about Harry the first time he went to her new flat. It was in a high rise, all white cabinets with no handles and a fridge that looked so expensive Draco wanted to climb inside it. Pansy sat on the counter, legs swinging, high heels dangling, as Draco told her.

“There’s maybe eight years worth of shit to unpack here, but…” she said, after Draco had stumbled to a halt, _‘so now we’re sort of just seeing each other, and it’s… nice, actually.’_

“Potter? I know,” said Draco.

One of her designer shoes fell off her foot with a loud clatter.

“I think, if we’re going to be… linguistic about it, I’m in love with him,” said Draco.

“Oh, linguistically.”

“Mm. And he, I suspect, is also—to reduce the large and inexplicable to the blunt medium of language—”

“In love with you.”

Draco spiked another bite of salad with his fork. She’d ordered it in. Draco hadn’t known you _could_ order in salad.

“It sounds a bit insane when I say it out loud,” he said. “Potter, in love with me.” He slanted a look at her, to see if she was laughing at him. She wasn’t. “Doesn’t it sound as if I’m imagining things?”

“Your entire life since I left has been a disaster,” she said. “What’s one more?”

* * *

After a month, Draco was finally allowed to visit Adelaide. He was apprehensive: sometimes in his absence, Adelaide’s mind worked itself to strange places, places where Draco had ruined everything and was the worst person she knew.

But she greeted him in the waiting room with a nervous smile. She had dressed up, as if he were someone important. It was unbelievable how touching Draco found that.

He could only stay for half an hour. She chattered through it, smiling and touching him often, making him laugh often. She told him about her new friends, about the stupid rules, about the girl who kept smuggling vodka into her dorm in water bottles, about Boring Laura’s unsuccessful attempt at introducing “Zen Yoga Wednesdays”.

“Do the heroin addicts look down on you?” asked Draco. Adelaide’s face changed. It became old. It was funny that of everything, it was this that aged her.

“No,” she said. “No, they…” she tucked her hair behind her ear. The roots were bad, but Draco had brought her more potion. She’d squealed with joy when he produced it. “They don’t notice me. I mean, they don’t care. I mean—they’re jealous, I think. When they think about it.”

“Jealous of you?”

Adelaide nodded.

“In Group, one of them—Logan—said I wanted to throw myself into the thing he was trying to climb out of.”

Draco kept his face neutral.

“I mean I’m not just—for the attention,” said Adelaide, accusatorially.

“No,” agreed Draco.

“But. Logan says sometimes people go chasing after rock bottom.”

Draco frowned.

“How close are you with this Logan?”

“Oh my God, relax, he’s gay.”

Draco tried not to show that this did, indeed, make him relax. Adelaide saw straight through him and rolled her eyes.

“You look good, by the way,” she said.

“Thanks. I’ve missed you.”

“Please,” said Adelaide. “You’ve just missed my cooking.”

“A lot. I’ve missed it a lot.”

She seemed so much more peaceful, so much calmer. She tilted her head and smiled at him.

“Well, I’ll be back soon,” she said.

***

This proved truer than Draco expected. When he and Harry first started up their strange, fierce, temporary affair, three months seemed an eternity. In no time at all, however, it was over.

Draco packed his things up. It was astonishing, how quickly he had grown used to living with Harry. He had kept waiting for something terrible to arise between them, some sign that they were bad together, but it was as though they had already burnt through each other’s flaws, and now there was nothing left but the qualities. He loved the languorous way Harry spent his time, and he loved the homey messiness of his bedroom, and the way every four or five days Harry would go on a cleaning rampage and make the house spotless. He loved the house, too, the fact that it had once been his mother’s. It felt like Draco belonged there with Harry. But if he belonged in Grimmauld Place, Adelaide belonged nowhere.

“It’s just a slowing down,” he said, zipping up his wash kit. He didn’t really believe it. He and Harry hadn’t talked about what would happen when Adelaide came back, beyond vague and miserable mentions of things that could not continue. It wasn’t very clear whether it was a break-up, or something else. However much Draco had said it was just a slowing down, he had no illusions. Harry wanted to wait _now_ , but he was _Harry Potter_. He never waited for anything.

“We can’t force anything,” said Harry. “She’s going to need stability.”

Draco glanced at him.

“I… It’s gone quickly,” he said. Harry nodded. He looked distraught, but in that noiseless way he had when he was sad but not angry. Harry had no problem showing it, when he was indignant. But when he was hurt, he was often still and brave like this, and it made everything so much worse.

“It’s just a slowing down,” said Draco again. Harry grimaced.

“Stop,” he said. “Don’t. It’s fine. It’s only a few years, we’ll be fine.”

“She might…”

“She hates me,” said Harry bluntly. “And you’re the only person she’s got.”

Harry walked him to the front door. Stroked Draco’s face, kissed him.

“I have to go,” said Draco. “I’ll be late picking her up.”

Harry nodded, taking a firm step back.

“Okay,” he said, not looking at Draco. “See you around.”

***

It probably _was_ worse for Harry, in the short term, at least, because Draco had Adelaide to distract him, Adelaide, who was so happy to be home, who was full of stories and tiny differences. She sneezed more _prettily_ than before. When Draco commented on it, she grinned.

“Zoe and I practiced. We watched this film where the heroine sneezed all cutely and we were determined to learn how.”

“My God,” said Draco. “You really were bored, weren’t you?”

“So bored. I’ll never call you boring again. I had no idea.”

They could not stop smiling at each other. Draco had bought all the ingredients for her to make a chilli, and he sat in the kitchen as she cooked, occasionally reflecting on how strangely soothing it was to be happy with her, despite the Harry-shaped ache in his chest.

Harry showed up at Dinsmore’s the next day at lunch.

“I haven’t spoken to her yet about—” said Draco.

“No, no, I know, I’m not staying,” said Harry, passing Draco a bag of food. It was from the restaurant where they’d had their first date. Draco had brought a mealy sandwich from home. He hadn’t expected to see Harry any time soon.

Cynthia poked through the bag of food with interest.

“Quiche,” she said, joyfully. Actual joy. How did someone get to be the sort of person who rejoiced over quiche? He wished he could discover the secret.

“I just wanted to ask how Adelaide is,” said Harry.

“Oh,” said Draco. Of course Harry would be thoughtful, even as things between them petered into nothing. “Thank you. She’s well. She’s better. It’s good to have her back.”

“I’m glad,” said Harry, staring at him as if he was trying to say something else. Draco stared back. Last night had been the first night in months he had spent alone, and he had missed Harry so much it had been hard to sleep.

Harry looked away.

“Okay, well, that’s all,” he said. “See you around?”

“Maybe—this weekend? If Adelaide agrees. The three of us could go to a park, or something,” said Draco.

Harry smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners, his entire face transformed.

“Yeah, definitely, whenever, I’m free whenever, I mean, whenever is best for you.”

“I’ll let you know,” said Draco.

Harry still looked as if Draco had just agreed to marry him.

“Yeah,” he said. “Great, this weekend. Great. Er. I’ll go then, now. This weekend? You’ll let me know?”

“Go, Harry,” said Draco, smiling too, and they shared a long, hopeful look, before Harry walked away.

But Draco was scared of telling Adelaide. She seemed so much better, so much more confident. He was terrified that he would tell her he’d been seeing Harry, and she would spiral into believing she was second-best, unloved, useless. So days passed, and he still had not told her.

Finally, she asked.

“What happened with you and Potter, in the end?” she asked over dinner on her fourth night back.

“Erm, we—we saw each other a bit, while you were away.”

Adelaide put her elbows on the table.

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” said Draco earnestly. “You’re my priority. I won’t see him again if you don’t want me to.”

“I thought we agreed he was a twat who treated you badly.”

“There were some… misunderstandings,” said Draco.

“You’re acting like I have a say in your sex life,” said Adelaide.

“I won’t bring someone you don’t like into your world.”

Adelaide leant back in her chair, looking more Pansyish than ever. It made him feel itchy and worried. If there had been no hope, it would all have been easier: he was getting rather good at resignation. It was the fact that there was one thread of chance leading towards a shining future in which he got to have _everything_ , Adelaide and Pansy and Harry, that made him feel like he couldn’t keep his legs still.

“But _you_ like him,” she said.

Draco nodded. His foot tapped manically against the floor. He tried to stop it, but just started tapping his fingers instead.

“God, is this how you feel when I date dicks?” she asked. “I don’t want him to hurt you.”

“If that’s your only concern,” said Draco, “then—maybe he could come over this weekend? And you could see for yourself.”

Adelaide frowned, as if she were realising something.

“You’re so nervous,” she said. “You really want this.”

“Not more than I want you to be comfortable,” said Draco. “I’m serious.”

“As if I could be comfortable if I was keeping you from something you wanted,” said Adelaide. Draco breathed out a heavy sigh.

“So—he can come on Saturday? Just so that you can—so you can see that he’s—and if you still don’t trust him then that’s fine, like I said, I don’t want to make things difficult for you, I’m so happy you’re back.”

“Draco. Jesus. Yes, obviously,” said Adelaide. “Although don’t count on me being polite. You may have forgiven him, but I haven’t.”

Draco got up, went to her side of the table, and hugged her. She made a surprised sound.

“Oh, Draco,” she said. “Were you really nervous?”

“I just want you to be happy,” said Draco, into her pink hair. “You can still change your mind. If you don’t like him after Saturday—”

“All right,” said Adelaide, standing so that she could hug him better. “I don’t want to tell you what to do. I only don’t want you to settle for someone shitty just because they were your childhood crush.”

“You’re taller,” said Draco. “Aren’t you?” He pulled away.

“Five eight,” she said, proudly. He tugged gently on a strand of her hair.

“What if…” he said. “What if he doesn’t treat me badly? What if, actually, he makes me happier than I’ve ever been before?”

He was sure he wasn’t imagining the brief look of sadness that crossed her face.

“Then that would be everything you deserve,” she said.

* * *

Harry ran eight miles on Saturday morning. Ron and Hermione had slept over the night before, because they knew how anxious he was, and how the anxiety seemed to translate to muscle pain. It had helped a little.

He was dressed and ready two hours before he was supposed to meet Draco and Adelaide. It was agony, waiting. He played the piano very badly, frantically sight reading new pieces, trying to occupy his brain and his hands.

By the time he arrived at the park where he was meeting them, he felt as if he’d been awake for days.

Draco was so handsome he made everyone else at the park look rather stupid. Adelaide scowled as Harry approached.

“Er, hi,” he said.

“You must hate that I’m back,” said Adelaide. Draco smiled at her as if she had just said something very clever.

“Er, no,” said Harry. “I’m just happy Draco’s happy.”

Adelaide scoffed, and Draco quietly took Harry’s wrist and said,

“Having trouble with the ache?”

“How do you notice so fast?” asked Harry.

Draco looked embarrassed, which was thrilling and adorable at the same time.

They walked idly through the park, feeding the ducks with grapes Adelaide had brought, stopping to get ice cream even though it was too cold. Harry continually forgot himself and touched Draco in small ways, taking his hand, leaning into his shoulder, tilting his head too close when he laughed at something Draco had said. In his defence, Draco was doing the same, constantly leaning in only to suddenly and guiltily pull back.

Harry had missed him so much. Even just seeing him was a relief, like water to a parched throat. Harry didn’t speak much, letting Draco and Adelaide chat away, mocking each other and bringing up in-jokes and talking about films Harry had never seen or even heard of. Harry didn’t care. It was only a new side of Draco to fall in love with.

They went to a coffee shop and had tea, the conversation tentative. Halfway through his drink Harry realised what it was like: how Draco must have felt when he had dinner with Ron and Hermione. Draco had done worse things than Harry, but then, Ron and Hermione had been less openly hostile than Adelaide.

“Is it weird for you, that you would have fucked me if Draco hadn’t caught us?” she asked sweetly, when Draco went to the loo.

Harry’s heart leapt up into his throat, but he kept his voice measured.

“Yeah, it is,” he said.

She looked as if she hadn’t expected that.

“Is it weird for you?” he asked.

“Obviously,” she said. She looked at him with hard, considering eyes. “Draco has a tendency to like people who mistreat him. My therapist says it’s probably a daddy-issue thing.”

“You think that’s why he likes me?” asked Harry.

Adelaide shrugged, studiously careless.

“I don’t know, is it?” she asked.

Draco came back and looked anxiously between them.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Swell and dandy,” said Adelaide. “Who’s paying? Aren’t you very rich, Harry?”

***

Harry went back with them to their flat, where Adelaide seemed to relax. She disappeared into her room several times, and each time she did, Draco came towards Harry as if called to him, leant quietly against him for a few moments, drawing away when Adelaide reappeared.

“All my friends are in love with Draco, of course,” Adelaide told Harry, sitting cross-legged on the sofa. Draco looked exasperated.

“They are _not_.”

“Oh, they are, and who can blame them? He’s very attractive, isn’t he, Harry?”

Draco glanced at Harry, amused. Harry couldn’t smile back. Draco was so attractive that it was actually a little painful. It hurt something in Harry’s chest to look at him.

“Yes,” he said, a little too roughly, then cleared his throat. “He’s all right.”

Adelaide and Draco both laughed at him.

Harry fell silent as they talked, enjoying their comfortable dynamic, the way they seemed half like friends and half like family. He found himself thinking, bizarrely, of the way Fred and George used to treat Ginny: as if she was part of their team, but also rather too special to be fully one of them, too precious to be risked in their more dangerous exploits.

By five, it was getting dark, and Harry knew he had to leave. Grimmauld Place would be dreadfully empty, but he knew he mustn’t infringe, knew he was only a visitor in Draco and Adelaide’s wholesome little life.

“I’d better get going,” he said.

“Oh,” said Draco, looking as if it hadn’t occurred to him that Harry would ever leave.

“It’s getting late,” said Harry.

“Right, yeah,” said Draco. Harry stood, put on his coat and scarf. Draco hovered near.

“It was nice to see you again, Adelaide,” said Harry. Adelaide had put on a nose pore strip ten minutes before and chose that moment to peel it off.

“Motherfucker!” she cried.

“I’ve told you, I have a potion for that,” said Draco. “Those strips just damage your skin.”

Adelaide was inspecting the strip.

“But it’s so satisfying,” she murmured. Then, without looking up, “bye, Harry.”

Draco went with him to the door. They looked at each other. It was awful, not knowing when they would next see each other.

“Well, night, love you,” said Harry. He realised what he’d said a split second after it had left his mouth. Draco’s eyes widened, and Harry fled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song I imagine Draco hearing in church is Eric Whitacre's Lux Aurumque https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j2JRcC6wBs


	8. Chapter 8

Adelaide appeared at Draco’s elbow where he stood staring after Harry’s retreating form.

“Did he just tell you he loved you?” she asked.

“Did you hear that, too? I thought I must have misheard,” said Draco.

“He’s never said it before?”

Draco shook his head and closed the door.

“It was probably a mistake,” he said. Adelaide rubbed her sore nose.

“You’re smiling,” she said. Draco immediately straightened his face.

“Sorry.”

“You’re in love with him,” she said.

“Well—” said Draco.

“Don’t deny it. I was watching you two all afternoon. Every time I left the room you went for each other. You’re like, head over heels in love with him.”

Draco held his right hand in his left, feeling the disparity of how it looked and how it felt. The rough skin on the knuckles.

“But what did you think of him,” he asked, his voice rather too quiet, rather too hopeful.

Adelaide smiled at him.

“You have my blessing,” she said, trying for a joke. But to Draco, it could not have been more serious. He felt as if the joy would come bursting out of him.

“Thank you,” he said.

Adelaide nudged him with her shoulder, shy and affectionate. Draco glanced at the door.

“I’ll be right back,” he said. Adelaide’s laughter followed him down the corridor.

The Apparition point wasn’t far away, and Harry walked fast. It was freezing, the wind cutting straight through Draco’s old wool jumper. He spotted Harry just as he was about to cross the street.

“Harry!” he called out. Harry looked around, caught sight of him, and broke out into a sunny smile. He came forwards to meet Draco, his hands reaching and then pulling back.

“Hey,” he said.

Draco knew he was smiling like an idiot, but he couldn’t seem to stop.

“Love you too,” he said.

“Ah,” said Harry, laughing, a kind of exclamation of delight. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say it for the first time like that, it just sort of slipped out.”

“Adelaide says—that it’s all right if we—”

“Ahh,” said Harry again, then put his hands on Draco’s chest. “Ahh, that’s, that’s so good!”

“I’ve missed you like mad,” said Draco, and then Harry was speaking over him,

“God, I dreamt you were in bed with me the other night, and I turned over to touch you and the bed was empty—”

“I can’t stop thinking about you, I think about you all the time—” said Draco.

“—Me too, I’m going mad, I was probably staring at you like an utter psychopath all afternoon—”

Draco’s hands ran all over Harry’s shoulders, found their way into his coat, crept under into the perfect warmth of his body. Harry tugged him close.

“I want to kiss you,” said Draco. Harry laughed, sounding slightly unhinged. The street was relatively empty, but still the kiss was chaste, short. “Can’t you just sleep over?” asked Draco, even though that wasn’t an option.

“You know I can’t,” said Harry. “Can’t you just move in with me?”

“Ha,” said Draco, “don’t tempt me; God, you’re so fucking good looking, I just want to touch every inch of you—”

And he tried, his hands roaming over Harry’s chest, prying under Harry’s scarf, touching his neck, his jaw.

“Do you have any idea how in love with you I am,” said Harry, “do you have any idea?”

“No, no,” said Draco, “no, you’ll have to tell me, come upstairs with me to my bedroom and tell me—”

“You’re terrible, you don’t even mean that,” said Harry. Draco looked up at his block of flats and saw—

He buried his face in Harry’s shoulder.

“She’s watching us,” he said. Harry looked up, saw Adelaide’s face in the window, and gave a cheerful wave. Adelaide waved back.

“You should go,” said Harry. “We can’t rush this, we have to think of her.”

“I know, I know, I know,” said Draco, clinging closer. “Fuck, I feel like a teenager.”

“I’m going to be thinking of you all night, I hope you realise,” said Harry.

“Come by tomorrow,” said Draco. “And then tomorrow night—”

“No,” said Harry. “No, we’re taking things slow, remember? I’ll see you three times a week, until Adelaide’s a bit more familiar.”

Draco made a small sound and kissed him.

“I love you,” he said. Harry’s laugh seemed to spill out of him.

“I love you too. This is insane, can you imagine, at school—”

“No, it makes no sense, none,” said Draco.

“You should go,” said Harry.

“I should go,” agreed Draco, and came in for another kiss. Harry broke away and kissed his temple, his ear. “I’m going.”

“Wait,” said Harry, and took off his scarf. Draco held it to his nose.

“It smells like you,” he said.

“Give me your jumper,” said Harry.

“This is childish,” said Draco, but he took off his jumper and handed it to Harry.

“I don’t care,” said Harry. “I don’t want to let you out of my sight, this is a poor substitute.”

Draco grinned.

“Is it a wolf thing?”

“No, you twat, it’s a _you_ thing,” said Harry. They kissed again. Draco shivered in the cold, and Harry insisted he take his coat.

“This is stupid,” said Draco, sinking his arms into the Harry-warmed sleeves.

“I’ll see you soon,” said Harry.

“Okay. I love you,” said Draco, only because he wanted to hear Harry say it again, it felt so new and mad and unlikely. Harry took his face in his hands.

“I love you, Draco,” he said, kissed him once more, and then walked away, arms wrapped around himself.

***

“That was adorable,” said Adelaide, when Draco got back.

“You’re a horrid little Peeping Tom,” said Draco.

“Is that his coat?”

Draco smiled as he shrugged it off.

“I was cold. He insisted.”

“Adorable,” said Adelaide. “Fiona’s going to be so disappointed. I think she wanted to lose her virginity to you.”

Draco shivered, but he was still smiling. He thought this might just be his face now: crazed with joy.

Adelaide did not come to church with him the next morning. He hadn’t expected her to. He had gone every week since Hermione first brought him; had grown to know the hymns and prayers, to understand when he was expected to sit or stand or kneel. The fourth time he had gone, he had made eye-contact with an elegant mother who always sat in the second-to-last pew with her husband and teenaged son. She smiled at him, shook his hand during the Peace. The next week it happened again. The week after that, Draco sat next to her.

“Cookie,” she introduced herself.

“Draco,” said Draco.

“I hate to see you sitting all alone every week,” she said.

“I don’t mind,” said Draco. “I’m only here for the music, really.” And the service began.

Over time, he learnt that her real name was Griselda, “but everyone called her Cookie”, her husband was named Archie, and their sulky, handsome teenage son was called Sebastian. Cookie explained about the bread and the wine, explained (with a slightly bemused expression as she realised the depths of Draco’s ignorance) about Jesus, the cross, the resurrection.

Draco didn’t question it too much. He had seen Harry come back from the dead, after all.

The morning after Harry told Draco he loved him, Draco sat next to Cookie in the second-to-last pew and day-dreamed his way through the service.

“Won’t you come to lunch with us?” asked Cookie, as the organ played and the priest made his way down the aisle.

“I have to get back to my sister,” said Draco.

“Bring her along!” said Cookie.

Draco glanced at Sebastian. He looked about seventeen. He wore the disgusted air of a young man battling humiliation with scorn. Draco was familiar with that look. A few weeks ago, Sebastian had said to him, during the Peace,

“I don’t believe in all this shit, you know. I only come because Dad takes us out to lunch after, and I like lunch.”

Draco texted Adelaide.

_DM: want to come have lunch with me and some church ppl_

**AL: lol really selling it there Draco**

**AL: why would I do that**

_DM: free lunch_

**AL: I do like lunch**

***

Perhaps in an attempt to scandalise Draco’s new church friends, Adelaide showed up at the restaurant in her most punk rock attire. Hair flaming pink—was that a nose ring?—heavy black boots, a leather skirt, eyes raccoonish with eyeliner.

Sebastian gazed at her in open-mouthed admiration.

“Adelaide, this is Seb,” said Draco.

“Don’t call me that,” said Sebastian. He held out his hand. Adelaide swept a cool look over him before putting out her hand. “Sebastian.”

“Adelaide,” she said.

“You two don’t look related,” said Sebastian, glancing at Draco. He appeared to have revised his opinion of Draco, who he had hitherto thought was a hopeless loser.

“We’re not,” said Adelaide, sinking into the chair next to Sebastian at the table and smiling at Cookie and Archie as Draco introduced her.

“Draco said you were his sister?” said Sebastian. Adelaide looked at Draco, who shrugged.

“I am,” she said. “Not by blood.”

Draco smiled into his water glass.

He managed to listen to what Cookie and Archie said through lunch just enough so that he wasn’t actually rude, all the while eavesdropping on Sebastian and Adelaide. Sebastian, thank God, was playing hard to get. _Clever boy_ , thought Draco. Adelaide started the meal at the height of icy haughtiness, but by pudding, she was laughing, trying to make Sebastian laugh. Succeeding, in places.

“We must do this again next week,” said Cookie.

“I’d love to,” said Draco. Next to him, Sebastian was putting his number into Adelaide’s phone.

***

“Sebastian seems a bit unfriendly,” said Draco, as they walked home.

“You don’t know him,” said Adelaide.

Draco hugged his coat close to him. He didn’t know Sebastian, of course, but he liked what he saw: a boy who spent time with parents, who had looked at Adelaide when she came into the restaurant as if she was the most perfect creature he’d ever seen, a boy who sulked through an hour church service once a week because he was quite keen on lunch.

Adelaide spent the evening on the sofa, texting, a secret smile on her face.

* * *

Harry showed up at Draco’s work every day that week.

“Aren’t you famous?” asked Cynthia. Harry flustered and fussed: _well, sort of, I, only because—_

“Horribly famous,” said Draco.

“That’s what I thought,” said Cynthia, then moved on to other, more interesting topics, like rye bread’s superiority over sourdough.

Harry came over to Draco’s flat on Tuesday. Tasha and Ellie and Fiona were in the sitting room with Adelaide, and when Draco poked his head in, Adelaide shrieked.

“Christ!” said Draco, clapping his hands over his ears.

“Let him come in!” said Fiona.

“No!” said Adelaide. “Go away, Draco, we’re talking about _sex!”_

“No fear,” said Draco, making a hasty exit. He and Harry ended up snogging against the fridge for the better part of an hour, until Fiona interrupted.

“Oh,” she said, standing, horror-struck, in the doorway. “You have a boyfriend?”

“Hi, I’m Harry,” said Harry.

Fiona looked heartbroken.

“Are you guys hungry yet?” asked Draco. “I was going to order something in.”

“So it’s pretty serious with you two?” asked Fiona. Harry wrapped an arm around Draco’s waist, cluelessly sappy.

“Yeah,” he said, kissing the side of Draco’s head. “I’d say so?”

“Cool, that’s, wow, cool,” said Fiona, and left.

“Weird kid,” said Harry.

“She’s all right,” said Draco, loyally.

***

The second time Harry came over that week, it was when Draco was teaching Adelaide Defence Against the Dark Arts. Draco had known it was a bad idea to have him over, it made him nervous and tongue-tied to have Harry watching him, but Harry had asked so hopefully, said _I know, I just miss you,_ so Draco had given in.

Adelaide was bored and unaccommodating.

“Do we _have_ to do this?” she asked. “Can’t you and Harry just go and like, cuddle all revoltingly in the kitchen or something?”

“Yes, we _have_ to do this,” said Draco. “You’re a witch, however much you like to avoid it.”

“Can I just—” said Harry. Draco and Adelaide both turned to look at him. He was sprawled on the sofa, flicking through the second year defence text book.

“What?” asked Adelaide.

“Just…” said Harry, looking at Draco. “Dispelling Cornish Pixies. I get that it’s in the curriculum, but it’s not all that relevant to her life, is it?”

“We’re behind,” said Draco, instantly defensive, he had done his _best_ , and he _knew_ it wasn’t good enough, but Adelaide was recalcitrant, he doubted whether there was anything he could have done to—

“Do you mind if I…?” asked Harry, setting the textbook down and getting to his feet. Draco hesitated for a moment, then gave up.

“Oh, sure,” he said. “Fine. Whatever you want.” He flopped onto the sofa. Adelaide looked at Harry as if he were some new enemy to vanquish.

“I was wondering,” said Harry, and he was watching Adelaide, now, only Adelaide, his entire being focused on her, “if there was any spell you ever wished you knew.”

“Draco makes my hair potions,” said Adelaide.

Harry moved slowly, as though she were wild and he wanted to tame her.

“When I was a kid, my aunt and uncle used to lock me in a cupboard for… ages, sometimes. Days and days.”

“What?” said Draco. “What the fuck?”

Harry ignored him.

“And I just used to _wish_ I could unlock that door, or at least turn on a light. So for me, _Alohomora_ and _Lumos_ were so exciting to learn,” he said. “Is there anything like that, for you?”

Adelaide looked sceptical, except her eyes were a little too wide. She was interested.

“Yeah, but you were eleven when you learned those,” she said.

“Can you think of anything like that, though?” asked Harry. “When you were younger… did you ever wish you could defend yourself, maybe?”

Slowly, Adelaide nodded.

“Have you studied _Protego_ yet?” asked Harry.

“It’s too advanced,” said Adelaide.

“No, it’s not,” said Harry. “You can do it. Draco, do you mind?”

“Be my guest,” said Draco, weakly.

What followed was a masterclass in defence, in teaching, and in trust. By the end of an hour, Adelaide was casting a Shield Charm so powerful that it made Draco feel frankly insecure. Harry kept laughing and saying, “That’s it! You’ve got it! That’s incredible!” and Adelaide was flushed and happy.

“Can we learn something else?” she asked, even though it was seven, at which point she usually collapsed on the floor and refused to do any more.

“Yeah!” said Harry, looking like the Harry that Draco remembered from school. Driven and determined, optimistic. “Have you done _Stupefy_?”

“That’s the one you used on Sam?” she asked.

“Yeah. Comes in handy,” said Harry.

“Do you think it’s too advanced?” asked Adelaide, uncertainly.

“Are you kidding? You learnt that Shield Carm faster than most new Aurors. You’re very good at this.”

Adelaide looked up through her hair.

“I am?”

“Yes,” said Harry.

Which would have been touching, had not been immediately followed by Harry announcing that Draco would serve as Adelaide’s guinea pig. Harry pulled the sofa cushions out and made Draco stand in front of them and directed Adelaide to stun Draco, over and over, until she had got the hang of it.

“You should teach me, instead of Draco,” Adelaide told Harry, after Draco had refused point blank to be stunned another time.

“Yeah?” said Harry, with a quick glance at Draco, and Draco realised that Harry _wanted_ to. He really, really wanted to.

“You should,” said Draco. Harry paused in putting the sofa cushions back.

“Yeah, all right,” he said. “I could probably do Charms as well, but you’d better stick to Draco for Potions.”

“Oh, who cares about Potions. Can you teach me to fly?”

“You _can’t fly?”_

Draco curled into himself, suddenly miserable.

“I wasn’t sure where to take her,” he said. “People are… inhospitable, on the public pitch.”

Harry reached for his shoulder at the same time as Adelaide. He and Adelaide both pulled their hands back.

“Sorry,” said Harry. “Sorry, you…” He gestured at Draco, and Adelaide looked a little embarrassed, but put one arm around Draco’s shoulder, kissed him softly on the cheek. She did that sort of thing so rarely. Only when she was happy.

“We can fly in the garden at Grimmauld,” said Harry. “Anytime.”

“Is that where you live? It sounds terrible,” said Adelaide.

“It isn’t,” said Draco, and Harry gave him a desperate look. Later, long after Harry had left, Draco found a handwritten note in the pocket of his jeans that said:

 _I can’t wait to live with you_.

He wasn’t even sure how Harry had put it there without him noticing. He folded and unfolded it, reading it too many times, until it made both too little and too much sense. He fell asleep with it in his hand.

* * *

It was a frustrating way to be deliriously happy. Harry knew love didn’t stay at this pitch forever, that one day it would no longer feel like a terrible ordeal to go to bed without Draco, but for now it was dreadful and perfect at once.

“I wake up all restless in the night,” he told Draco, in one of their stolen hours.

Draco started putting a strand of his hair in Harry’s weekly potion, which helped, but didn’t stop Harry from waking up in the night, alone and lonely and frightened.

“What _of_?” asked Draco. Adelaide was in the sitting room with her friends. Harry secretly wished Draco would take him to his bedroom, but Draco never suggested it, so Harry didn’t either.

“Of—of it not—” said Harry, faltering.

“Adelaide likes you,” said Draco.

“It just feels like a long time until we can… fall asleep together.”

“Mmm,” said Draco, kissing Harry’s jawline. “It does. Sleep over.”

“No,” said Harry.

“Don’t you want to?”

“Stop it,” said Harry. “That’s not fair, you know how much I want to.”

The door opened. They sprang apart.

“Ugh,” said Adelaide. “All you two do is _neck_.”

***

It was true that Adelaide liked Harry. Ever since he had taken over teaching her, she had flourished: he had never seen anything like it. She practiced for hours and hours. She never seemed to tire of learning. She practically vibrated with pleasure at the slightest praise, and it spurred her on and on.

“At this rate, you could apply to one of the Oxbridge colleges,” he told her.

“To do English…?”

“No—Defence,” said Harry.

Adelaide frowned.

“But,” she said. “I thought wizards just… married their first sweetheart and had kids and worked for the government.”

“Er,” said Harry, thinking of, more or less, everyone he knew. “Yeah, okay, they _do_ do that a lot. But you can go to university to study magic. And the Oxbridge programs are good because they’re more assimilated with the Muggle world.”

Adelaide looked thoughtful, and changed the subject.

Draco didn’t stay for the lessons anymore. At first he had sat in the corner, scribbling formulas in a notebook and absent-mindedly chipping in when Harry mentioned something about Potions. “She can be a bit nervy around strange men,” he explained. But after a few weeks it was apparent that Draco’s presence was superfluous. Adelaide was slightly anxious around Harry, but only because she wanted to impress him so badly.

She insisted that Harry come with them to the shelter when they picked out Shark. Not that anyone listened to Harry, of course. He immediately went for the prettiest dog in the shelter, a sleek white thing with a long, noble nose and soft, elegant ears.

“No way,” said Adelaide, when Harry showed her. “That’s a stuck-up dog.”

“She’s a dog! She can’t be stuck up,” said Harry.

“No, I agree,” said Draco, hand on his chin. “That dog is conceited.”

“She thinks she’s better than us,” said Adelaide.

Draco and Adelaide both spotted Shark at the same time, as if they recognised him.

“Shark!” said Adelaide.

“Oh, Sharky!” cried Draco, and the pair of them kneeled in front of the most mangy, hideous beast Harry had ever seen.

“He’s perfect!” said Adelaide.

“I love him,” said Draco, with heartfelt sincerity.

“His teeth are fucked,” said Harry. “D’you reckon he can even chew?”

Shark’s underbite was… dramatic.

“What’s wrong with you,” said Adelaide. “He’s a darling little dog.”

“Come here, Sharky. We’re taking you home,” said Draco.

***

By the time Harry realised he loved Adelaide, it was too late to do anything about it, even though it worsened his fears that everything would end, somehow, that someone—maybe him—would do something to fuck it up before it had properly started. Loving Adelaide meant that he loved Draco’s _family,_ which was hard, because Harry only ever got to love other people’s families from the outside. He never got to be part of them.

Harry was a little late one afternoon—Ron and Hermione had had a fight, and Harry had spent two hours trying, very mildly, to convince Ron he had been a prat, only for Ron to suddenly realise it himself and go rushing home.

When he got to Draco’s, Harry was tired, and a little grumpy. No one came to the door when he knocked, but he could hear voices inside, so he let himself in with _Alohomora—_ he really needed to increase the security on Draco’s flat—and went to the kitchen.

Shark cowered under the table. (He was very wary of Harry. It was one of the few things that reminded Harry that something was wrong with him.) Draco was pale and hard-eyed. Adelaide stood a few feet away, her fine features twisted in an expression of derision. Neither of them noticed Harry, in the doorway.

“… as if you care, as _if_ ,” said Adelaide, slurring her words slightly.

“There’s no sense in talking about this now,” said Draco.

“I’m going out,” said Adelaide. Draco laughed.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

“I wish you were _dead_ ,” said Adelaide, the words slick with venom, “I wish Tertius had _killed_ you!”

Draco took a small step backwards, blinked.

“I take it we’re not doing class today?” asked Harry, lightly.

“Harry,” said Draco, and all but fell into his arms. For one small moment, for only a matter of seconds, Harry held him, and Draco clutched at his neck. Then he stepped away.

“The clinic said relapses were quite normal,” he said.

“That clinic was _bullshit_ ,” said Adelaide. “I’m _fine_ , if I was twenty-five no one would think twice!”

Draco raised his eyes to the ceiling and moved his lips silently. A prayer, Harry suspected. Then Draco went to Adelaide and touched her head.

“It will _always_ worry me when you get drunk alone in your room,” he said. “Come on, Harry’s here. Let’s—let’s watch a film.”

“You don’t _want_ me,” she said, tears springing to her eyes. “Neither of you, you only want each other.”

“Darling,” said Draco, pulling her into a hug. “That’s mad. That’s completely wrong.”

Adelaide hid her face in his shoulder and sobbed. Draco looked over her head at Harry, mouthed _sorry_.

 _Should I go_ , Harry mouthed back. Draco shook his head. After a minute, Harry came to stand by them.

“I doubt I’d even like Draco if you weren’t around,” said Harry. “What would we have to talk about?”

Adelaide laughed, still not lifting her head.

“Nothing,” said Draco. “Do you have any idea how boring Potter is?”

“Do you want me to go?” Harry asked her.

“No,” said Adelaide. Her voice was muffled. “Stay.”

If it had been the Weasleys, Harry reflected, they wouldn’t have wanted him to witness their dysfunction. They loved him, they wanted him to belong, but they were embarrassed when he was there for their worst moments.

“I’d be so lonely without you,” Draco was saying, in a low voice, hands rubbing up and down Adelaide’s back. “I’d miss you so much. We’re family; we’re all we’ve got.”

Adelaide made a small noise and nodded.

“Did you have a bad day at school?” asked Draco. Adelaide gulped.

“Fiona said I could live with her when you move in with Harry,” she said.

“Oh,” said Draco. “What a sweet little idiot that girl is. I’m not moving anywhere without you, Adelaide.” He lifted her head up so he could meet her eyes. “Adelaide. I’ll probably end up following you to university. You’ll be begging me to leave. I’ll be lurking around your dorms, reminding you how to do laundry.”

Adelaide swallowed hard, then looked at Harry.

“It’s true,” said Harry, struggling a little to speak. “No plans—not for the next few years.”

***

Adelaide picked the film, a truly bizarre tale of sexy sad women working in a bar in New York. Draco looked dourly resigned when she announced it, and said “Well, Harry, I hope you like poorly constructed plot and thin dialogue.”

Adelaide sat in between them, smelling faintly of rum, Shark drooling adoringly on her lap. Draco rested his cheek on the armrest and promptly fell asleep.

“Right, so, why can’t she just sing on stage?” asked Harry.

“She has _stage fright_ ,” said Adelaide.

“Right, right,” said Harry, and then, ten minutes later, “This is a bad film.”

Adelaide didn’t look at him.

“I love Draco,” she said.

“I know,” said Harry, carefully.

“He’s a good person.”

“I know,” said Harry, again.

Adelaide glanced at him.

“Was that true, about your aunt and uncle?”

Harry nodded.

“So you didn’t really have much family,” she said.

“No,” said Harry. They looked at each other. “I always wanted it.”

Her lips drew up in a tiny smile.

“Yeah, me too,” she said.

“But you have it, now,” said Harry.

She leant over and brushed a strand of hair out of Draco’s face. He shifted sleepily and mumbled.

“Yeah,” she said. “I guess so.”

***

Harry didn’t see either of them again until that weekend, when Draco showed up unannounced with Adelaide at Grimmauld Place.

“Have you got a broom she could borrow?” he asked, as Harry bustled around the kitchen, getting them glasses of lemonade.

“She can use my Firebolt,” said Harry. “I’ve only got one broom, though.”

“It’s painful to think that you have no idea how spoiled you are,” Draco told Adelaide. “I don’t think I’ve ever even _touched_ a Firebolt.”

Adelaide yawned. Draco turned to Harry, outraged.

“Do you see?” he said. “Do you see her callous disregard for Quidditch?”

“God, it’s so _boring_ ,” said Adelaide. “Flying is cool without turning it into a fucking team sport.”

Harry guided them out into the garden before they could bicker any more.

He had predicted that Adelaide would be a decent flyer, because she was in good shape, and she was reckless. She kicked off from the ground fearlessly, and although she was a bit wobbly on the turns, she had the makings of a pretty decent flyer, given that she was coming to it so late. Harry shouted instructions at her as she flew. Draco sat on the garden bench, following Adelaide’s every move with a rather nervous set to his mouth, his wand out.

When she grew tired and landed, Draco came to look at the Firebolt.

“May I?” he asked Harry, touching the wood reverently. “It’s been years…”

“Go for it,” said Harry, and Draco took off into the sky, flying with a dizzy carelessness that reminded Harry how young Draco still was. It was easy to forget that.

Harry and Adelaide sat on the bench, drinking the lukewarm lemonade and watching Draco whizz around. It was a cool day, but dry, and the air smelled clean.

“Thanks for being chill,” she said. “About the other day.”

“No problem,” said Harry. Then he shifted to face her. “Did you apologise yet to him?”

“Apologise?” asked Adelaide, her face closing up. “For what?”

“For what you said. About wishing Tertius had killed him.”

“Oh, that,” said Adelaide, dismissively. “Draco doesn’t care. I say that sort of shit to him all the time.”

Harry knew he was overstepping, but he couldn’t let it go.

“He does care,” he said. “It hurt his feelings.”

Adelaide frowned.

“Did he, like, say something?”

“No, but I was there, I saw.”

“He doesn’t care,” said Adelaide, again. “Seriously, you just don’t get our relationship.”

Draco did a loop-the-loop and gave a loud cry like a bird of prey.

“Maybe,” said Harry. “You probably know him better than I do. Does Draco seem to you like someone who isn’t hurt when the people he loves are cruel to him?”

Adelaide’s frown deepened.

“It’s none of your business,” she said.

“Okay,” said Harry. “Maybe you’re right. I think it would mean a lot to him if you apologised.”

“Draco!” shouted Adelaide. “Stop hogging the broom, it’s my turn again!”

***

She didn’t speak to Harry for the rest of the afternoon, was sullen and distant with him. It frightened Harry—what if she changed her mind about him, told Draco she didn’t want Harry to come around anymore? But all the same, he felt he’d done the right thing. Draco needed someone in his corner.

***

When Harry brought Draco lunch at work that Monday, Draco was irrepressibly cheerful. Cynthia caught wind of a good smell and went off to investigate.

“Something quite lovely happened,” said Draco, once she was gone. “Adelaide apologised to me.”

“Oh?” asked Harry, adjusting the lettuce on his sandwich with focused care. “Does she not, usually?”

“No, she does, sort of—it’s usually a bit abstract and indirect, though. This time…” he fell silent, head to one side.

“This time?”

“She apologised for hurting my feelings, if you’d believe it,” said Draco.

“Huh,” said Harry.

“I said, don’t worry about it. She said, have I hurt your feelings like that before.” Draco cast Harry a sly look. “I said, normally only when you’re drunk. That got her.”

Harry laughed.

“Sneaky,” he said.

“True, though,” said Draco, frowning. “She says such awful things, when she’s been drinking. I can’t forget them, afterwards. When I can’t sleep at night, I…”

Harry nuzzled his head against Draco’s shoulder.

“I’m glad she apologised,” he said. “That was thoughtful of her.”

“I know,” said Draco. “It really was. I didn’t expect it—I didn’t need it. But it was lovely.”

Adelaide was perfectly friendly that afternoon, when Harry came to teach her Stinging Hexes, as if nothing had changed between them, and Harry dared hope again.

* * *

“I was thinking of dyeing my hair,” said Adelaide.

“Mmm,” said Draco, head bent over a proof at the kitchen table. Adelaide was making moussaka.

“Blonde, I was thinking,” she said.

“All right,” said Draco, absently. “I’ll make something up. What shade?”

Adelaide set a pan of béchamel sauce to the side.

“Yours,” she said.

Draco looked up. Adelaide’s roots were showing, mousy brown. She had a bit of sauce on her nose.

“Mine? You want to dye your hair my colour?”

“People never think we’re related,” she said, then turned quickly around.

Draco’s eyes dropped sightlessly to his notebook.

“I’ll make something up,” he said.

He worked for hours on that hair potion, hours and hours. He expanded his research, looked into Muggle chemicals, into keratin conditioners and silicon treatments and moisturising oils to counter the stripping agents of the potion. When Adelaide washed it out in the bath—Draco holding the shower head, as he always did, and drying her with his wand when she was done—his hard work was immediately apparent. Adelaide’s hair was soft, healthy, icily blond. It looked _natural_. As if it grew straight out of her head like that, Malfoy-white.

“Is it okay?” she asked. “You look weird. Is it terrible?”

“No,” said Draco, “no, it, it looks good.”

Adelaide went to the mirror and stilled. Draco stood next to her. Their mirror images stared back at them, both blond and tall and slender. Neither of them spoke for a moment.

“We look—” she said.

“I know.”

Another pause. Adelaide touched a strand of her hair, reverent.

“We’re hot,” she said.

“Family trait,” said Draco. She dipped her head so it rested on his shoulder, and they stood a little longer like that, watching themselves.

* * *

“You seem happier,” said Kevin.

“It probably won’t last,” said Draco, hurriedly.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because—well—I don’t know, it probably just… won’t,” said Draco.

“Some scientists believe that the only surefire way to increase mental well-being is to invest time in personal relationships,” said Kevin.

Draco always perked up when Kevin mentioned scientists. Draco had no idea what they did, but it seemed very impressive.

“And?”

“It feels as if you have been investing more time in your personal relationships, lately,” said Kevin.

“It’s been nice having Pansy back,” admitted Draco. He and Pansy met up once a week for drinks when Adelaide was at Tasha’s house (Draco now always called Tasha’s mother to verify this claim).

Kevin waited.

“And Shark’s made a difference,” added Draco. “He's a cheerful little thing.”

Kevin waited.

“And Adelaide hasn’t had another relapse, so that’s a weight off my mind,” said Draco, conclusively. “I suppose, between all that, my outlook has—”

“What about Harry?”

Draco couldn’t stop the helpless smile. He never could, whenever anyone brought up Harry. It went further than that, actually: Ellie had mentioned Prince Harry the other day, and Draco had grinned like an idiot, because that was Harry’s name.

“Yeah, that’s going all right,” he said.

“Would you say you feel more secure with regards to his affections, now?”

Draco slouched down on the sofa.

“Is that poster new?” he asked. Kevin swivelled to look where Draco pointed: a black poster with Helvetica words, _Love is two unperfect people refusing to give up on each other._

“No,” said Kevin. “In fact, in one of our first sessions together, you told me that poster was irresponsibly stupid.”

Draco made a face.

“Sorry. Well, in fairness, it’s quite a toxic message, really. Also, is unperfect a word? I don’t think it is. Shouldn’t it be imperfect?”

“You made that point last time,” said Kevin.

“Did I?” Draco paused.

“Why do you bring it up?”

“Oh,” said Draco. “Because—I don’t know. It caught my eye. It seemed less abhorrent than the rest of your decor. Only briefly. Is that the only font they had?”

“Do you think Harry will give up on you?” asked Kevin, irritatingly perceptive, as always. Draco pulled eight tissues out of the tissue box and folded them neatly, saving them for later. Kevin always bought the posh tissues, and Draco always stole them.

“No,” he answered, finally. “I think he loves me.”


	9. Chapter 9

Draco and Adelaide showed up at Grimmauld the next time Harry was due to transform. Adelaide held out a plate of steak with a winsome smile.

“Happy wolf day!” she said.

“That’s not a thing,” said Harry.

“For he’s a jolly good wolf man, for he’s a jolly good wolf man, for he’s a jolly good wooooolf maaaan—” sang Adelaide.

“God, _stop_ ,” said Harry. “Come in.”

Draco sat opposite him in the kitchen, watching him eat the (admittedly _delicious_ ) steak Adelaide had prepared. Adelaide sat cross-legged on the countertop, digging through a box of assorted fancy teabags that Harry had stolen from state functions.

“Oo, passionfruit,” she said.

“I didn’t expect you guys to come,” said Harry. Draco rolled his eyes.

“As if I was going to miss your wolf day,” said Adelaide.

“It’s not my…!”

“Surely you knew I’d be here,” said Draco, quietly, and Harry’s mouth fell into a little smile, because of course Draco was right. Harry had had no doubt that he would come. He hadn’t even told Ron and Hermione, because he was so sure that Draco would know he was needed. It was only Adelaide’s presence that was unexpected.

“Question: how big are you, as a wolf? Are you cuddly? Can we pet you?” she asked, pouring hot water with her wand over a selection of three of the most expensive tea bags, which she had put into one mug.

“I’m a very large storybook monster, Adelaide,” said Harry. “I’m not _cuddly_.”

“Shame,” said Adelaide, taking a sip of her elaborate tea concoction and grimacing. “Wow, that is _shit._ Draco, come taste.”

“You just said it tasted shit,” said Draco.

“Yeah, like feet. Come taste.”

When Harry had eaten, they followed him up to his bedroom.

“Is this where we would have shagged, if Draco hadn’t shown up that time?” asked Adelaide.

“You’re in a right mood tonight,” said Harry.

“She’s nervous,” said Draco, his voice low, but Adelaide still caught it.

“I am _not_ nervous. About _what?_ About _Harry?_ ”

“About violence,” said Harry. He looked at Draco. “You shouldn’t have brought her.”

Draco shrugged, settling himself onto the bed.

The moonlight hit Harry a few minutes later, and he was overtaken by the agonising compression of all that he was, the shrinking, the growing, the huge room, the smells—a hand held out before his nose. It was one of his people. He licked it.

“He _is_ cuddly,” said the girl whose hand it was, and began stroking his head. He licked up her arm as she laughed. But there was another smell, and Harry went to investigate. It was on the bed: a clean, friendly smell. His friend, his closest friend. The man smiled at him.

“Hello,” said the man.

Harry flopped heavily onto his side next to him. The man made a delighted sound.

“I told you, Adelaide,” he said, curling around Harry’s body, burying his face in the scruff of Harry’s neck. “Isn’t he gorgeous?”

“Can’t we keep him like this?” said the girl, coming to sit on Harry’s other side.

“Tempting, but Shark wouldn’t like it,” said the man. The girl stroked Harry’s face, and Harry whined.

“Aren’t you perfect,” said the girl. Harry closed his eyes, letting her words wash over him, safer and warmer than he’d ever been. “Perfect,” she said, and it felt, just then, as if she was right.

* * *

Harry woke the next morning with his face buried into Adelaide’s shoulder. Draco’s arm was wrapped around his waist. Adelaide was breathing in delicate little snorts.

Harry turned over, and found Draco watching him.

“Morning,” said Draco. He looked rather uncertain. Harry smiled at him, and the uncertainty melted away. Draco smiled back.

“Did you sleep okay?” asked Harry.

“I think I have fur in my eye,” said Draco, dabbing at his eye with one finger.

“Sorry,” said Harry. Draco squinted at him.

“The perils I suffer,” he said, and something loosened in Harry’s chest, some anxiety he hadn’t been aware of. It was so apparent that Draco wasn’t frightened of him.

Adelaide made a snuffling sound and turned over.

“Let’s go make tea,” said Draco, which Harry correctly interpreted as “let’s go canoodle downstairs.”

“Gross,” said Adelaide, when she finally emerged. Harry sat between Draco’s legs on the sofa, Draco’s chin hooked around his shoulder, Draco’s arms wrapped securely around his chest. Draco had spent the last hour alternating between kissing Harry’s neck, and making wolf puns into his ear.

“Morning,” said Draco, releasing Harry and straightening up. Adelaide looked at Harry.

“I liked you better as a wolf,” she said.

* * *

Draco was a bit dodgy about letting Harry come to church with him, as if it were some private, secret thing.

“You won’t make fun of it,” he said several times, half question, half command.

“Of course not,” said Harry.

“Because a lot of it is quite silly if you—if you haven’t bought into it. But—”

“Draco. I’m not going to mock your religion.”

“It’s not my—I don’t even know if—I only go for the music.”

***

But Harry watched him, in the cathedral. Watched how Draco cast his eyes up at the altar, how his lips moved in silent prayer, how fervently he sang the hymns. Harry got bored during the sermon about kindness, but Draco leant forward in the pew, intently focused. Only during the Peace did he seem to return to himself, when he shook hands and even kissed the elegant middle-aged woman next to them. Harry guessed this was Cookie, whom he had heard a lot about.

“So?” asked Draco, as they filtered out of the church. “What did you think?”

“The choir was good,” said Harry.

“It’s magical, isn’t it?” asked Draco, eager, eyes shining. “It’s just like magic.”

“Not… not to me,” said Harry, gently. “ _Magic_ is magic, to me.”

“Magic! Magic is for _chores. God_ is for the unanswerable.”

“I thought you just came for the music,” said Harry, smiling. Draco flushed and looked away.

“I do,” he said.

They had lunch with Cookie and her husband and miserable teenage son, who, it turned out, was not at all miserable once Adelaide turned up. They sat next to each other at the far end of the table, heads bent close, muttering and laughing in undertones.

“Adelaide seems to like Sebastian,” said Harry. Draco looked horrified.

“Don’t _say_ anything! If she thinks we approve, she’ll stop wanting him!”

And, indeed, as Harry walked them home, Draco made several snide remarks about Sebastian.

“His mother despairs of him,” he said. “He’s incredibly rude to his teachers.”

“Only the stupid ones,” said Adelaide. “He’s really clever.”

“He doesn’t do any work, apparently,” said Draco.

Adelaide just rolled her eyes and looked pleased.

***

Adelaide went into her bedroom when they got home, and Draco straddled Harry on the sofa, alternated between kissing Harry’s collar bones and starting guiltily away whenever he thought he heard a sound.

“Draco,” said Harry. “You’re—we can’t—”

“Shh,” said Draco, his hand going to Harry’s dick over his jeans.

“God,” said Harry.

By the time Adelaide came out, Harry was so hard that he had to go to the bathroom to calm down. He went home that evening pent up, frustrated, delighted. It was a cocktail of feelings he was rather used to. They hadn’t had sex since Adelaide got home from rehab, although every Thursday, when Draco came to deliver the potion, they got each other off quickly and messily, usually before they had even left the front hall.

“Can’t you stay for a bit?” Harry asked, one Thursday. “You used to stay for hours.”

“Adelaide—”

“She never noticed,” said Harry.

“Yeah, because she was being _groomed_ by a creepy adult man!”

Harry let his forehead drop onto Draco’s shoulder.

“I know,” he said. “Yeah, I know, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Harry,” said Draco, taking Harry’s face in his hands and placing kisses all along his cheek, the bridge of his nose, the other cheek. “I’m going absolutely mad for you.”

“Fuck,” said Harry. “Me, too. I love her, you know.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I get why you’re—I’m glad we’re going slow. But I also just want to…”

“I think about fucking you all the time,” said Draco. “At work. At night. When I’m doing the dishes. It’s all I ever think about."

Harry let a breath out, half laugh, half desperation.

“God. Draco.”

“I should go,” said Draco.

Harry bit his lip and whined. He had a semi, _already_ , even though he had _just_ come.

Draco kissed him.

“You should go,” said Harry.

“Yeah,” said Draco.

They went again, Draco sitting on the stairs and tilting his head back as Harry kissed up his thighs. They collapsed against each other once they had both come, and didn’t speak for a full ten minutes, lazily kissing each other’s hands, stroking each other’s hair.

“You should go,” said Harry.

“Yeah,” said Draco.

Harry checked his pockets after Draco was gone, and sure enough, there was a tidily folded note in Draco’s clumsy, broken-handed print:

 _I’ve always admired you_.

Harry put it with the others.

***

The next day, Harry came over to Draco’s to watch a film with him and Adelaide.

“Can I pick?” he asked. They both just laughed. Draco chose _Braveheart_. They didn’t start it until half past ten, and the film was approximately eight hours long, or so it felt to Harry. He nodded in and out of the narrative.

He woke up when the film ended. There was popcorn all over his jeans, and Adelaide had drawn a penis on his cheek in permanent marker.

“You let her do it??” he asked Draco.

“I have to pick my battles,” said Draco. Adelaide had her feet tucked under Harry’s thigh. She cackled.

“Ugh,” said Harry. “I need to go home.”

“Why don’t you just sleep over?” asked Adelaide.

Harry froze, then turned very cautiously to look at Draco.

“We’re taking it slow,” said Draco. Adelaide scoffed.

“Jesus, what are you, American teenagers saving it for prom night?”

“Harry has things to do tomorrow, anyway,” said Draco.

“No, I don’t,” said Harry.

“I wish you’d stay the night sometimes, Harry,” said Adelaide. “Then maybe Draco would get off my back when my friends come over. He always lurks in the corner like a fucking loser.”

“Hey! Your friends like me!”

“It _is_ late,” said Harry, with a tentative look at Draco. Adelaide wiggled her toes under Harry’s leg.

“Come on, Draco, don’t be such a stick in the mud.”

“Well, if you want,” said Draco, not quite addressing Harry.

***

Draco didn’t have a spare toothbrush. Harry used a charm and washed the penis drawing off his face in the sink.

He had never been inside Draco’s bedroom. It was little. His bedding was white, his curtains dark blue. Draco sat up in the bed, flushed and nervous.

There was a framed photo of his mother on the bedside table, and another frame that Draco had placed face-down. Harry went to it and put it to rights. It was, as he had predicted, a photograph of Lucius Malfoy, smiling widely at the camera, eight-year-old Draco on his knee.

“I thought you might find that a bit of a turn-off,” said Draco.

“It’s a cute photo,” said Harry.

Draco’s Adam’s apple moved up and down his throat. He had left an absurdly large chunk of the bed for Harry.

Harry cast a Locking Charm on the door, and a _Muffliato_. He didn’t use his wand, and Draco followed the movements of his hands with a distracted expression.

“Come to bed,” he said.

Harry climbed in. They lay facing each other, almost a foot of space between them. Harry’s breathing was far too loud in the silence.

“Do you remember when you came to Azkaban?” asked Draco.

“Yes,” said Harry.

“Why were you there?”

“It was part of Auror training,” said Harry. Draco nodded. “But I asked specially to see you.”

He could make out the quick flicking of Draco’s eyelashes in the dim light.

“I wanted to see if you were all right,” said Harry.

“In some ways it—all sort of makes sense, doesn’t it? You and me.”

“You’re so far away,” said Harry. “Why are you all the way over there?”

Draco stretched his hand out, the right one.

“You know we could probably take this to a specialist,” said Harry. “See if you could get it fixed.”

“I don’t need fixing,” said Draco, and then he was on him, rolled over, on top of Harry, his weight on his elbows, bracketing Harry’s head, and on his hips, pressing into Harry’s.

“I’m going to take such good care of you,” said Harry, on the last breath he had under Draco’s crushing weight. Draco bent his head and kissed him.

***

They woke up several times in the night, too hot, and too cold, and each time the fresh feeling of Draco within grasp came to Harry like a victory.

***

In the morning, they lay wrapped up in each other, tired and content, and Draco said “I love this,” and Harry said “Me, too,” and Adelaide startled them by banging on the door.

“Are you decent? I’ve made French toast. Put some clothes on!”

***

“I can’t believe you fell asleep during _Braveheart_ ,” said Draco, as they ate. “You’re worse than Adelaide.”

“Not everyone wants to watch three-hour historical epics every night of the week, Draco,” said Adelaide.

“It _was_ long,” said Harry.

“The girls want to come over later and make a cake,” said Adelaide.

“Do we have the ingredients?”

“Yeah. Harry, you’ll stay, won’t you?”

“Er,” said Harry.

“You have to stay. If Draco isn’t occupied, he sits around in the kitchen and monopolises Fiona.”

“Fiona monopolises _me!_ ” said Draco.

“Yeah, I’ll stay,” said Harry. And he kept saying that, over and over, for days and weeks, until his toothbrush fit better next to Adelaide’s pink one and Draco’s fancy electric one than it did in his on-suite at Grimmauld.

* * *

“Just, like, don’t be weird, okay?” said Adelaide.

“I promise,” said Sebastian.

“Because Draco is protective.”

“I promise. I’ll call him _sir._ I’ll doff my cap. I’ll ask for your hand in marriage.”

Adelaide leant into him, and Sebastian put his arm around her. It was a thin, wiry arm, not what she was used to. She had been handled by men, and it was strange, still, to be with a boy. He felt so much more breakable.

“You can stay the night, you know,” she said.

“Yeah. Like Mum would allow _that_ ,” said Sebastian. “She likes Draco, but there are limits. She’s terrified I’ll knock you up.”

“Someone should tell her about condoms.”

“Mmm,” said Sebastian, dipping his head and kissing her. They were in the park near Adelaide’s house. “I _wish_ I could sleep over. I bet you look even prettier in the morning.”

“You don’t want to see me without makeup on.”

Sebastian put his head to one side and narrowed his eyes.

“What?” asked Adelaide.

“Deciding if I want to see you without makeup on.”

Adelaide laughed.

“What’s the verdict?”

“Still deciding.” He cupped her chin and wiped at her bottom lip with his thumb. “Good bone structure. What colour are your eyelashes?”

“I don’t know, brown?”

“Hmm. Difficult.”

“Yeah, okay, fuck you,” said Adelaide.

“You’re gorgeous. You’d be gorgeous without a lick of makeup,” said Sebastian. Adelaide smiled and tugged on his hand.

“Come on. Let’s get this over and done with.”

***

Harry and Draco were in the sitting room, watching television. Draco was curled against Harry’s chest. He didn’t move when Adelaide walked in, only stretched idly, happy to see her.

Then he spotted Sebastian. He sat up.

“Seb! We meet out of church, at last.”

Adelaide squeezed Sebastian’s hand, and his scowl lessened.

“Hi, Draco,” he said. “Harry.”

“Sebastian and I are going to go work on a project in my room,” said Adelaide.

“A ‘project’?” asked Draco, standing. He was quite a bit taller than Sebastian. “You two don’t go to the same school.”

Adelaide stuck her chin out.

“You want more details?” she asked.

Draco crossed his arms, looking from her to Sebastian.

“Might I enquire how long you anticipate this _project_ will take?”

“We don’t know yet,” said Adelaide. “We’re working it out.”

A muscle twitched in Draco’s jaw, but she couldn’t tell if he was angry or amused.

“Come on, Draco, you’ve always told me I can shag anyone I like as long as they’re not more than a year older than me,” said Adelaide, abandoning pretences. Sebastian gasped beside her.

“Adelaide…!”

Draco looked Sebastian up and down, coldly.

“You hurt her, and I will tell your mother that you smoke weed,” he said.

“How do you…?!” said Sebastian.

“Do you understand me?” asked Draco.

“Yes, sir,” said Sebastian. It sounded as if the _sir_ had slipped out. He went to one of those posh schools where everyone had to stand up when a teacher entered the classroom.

Draco smirked.

“God, you’re so cringe,” Adelaide told him. “Come on, Sebastian.”

“Did you tell him I smoke weed?” Sebastian asked her, once the door was closed.

“I don’t know, probably,” said Adelaide. “I tell him most things.”

Sebastian walked around her room, touched her pink seashell lamp.

“And he and Harry are…?”

“Sickeningly in love? Yeah. It’s gross,” said Adelaide, because it was. Mostly.

Once, Draco had walked into the kitchen, looked at the crumbs under the toaster, sighed, and left the room. Harry had waited till he was gone, then had cleaned the entire kitchen counter—unplugged the toaster, Scourgified it, wiped the crumbs out from under it, cast a Polishing Charm.

Adelaide had a pretty good idea of what it was like to date a man, or at least, a certain type of man. But what Draco and Harry had wasn’t like that. She watched them, and thought, _I want that_. She had seen it in films and thought it fanciful, but it didn’t seem so out of reach, anymore.

Adelaide had once drunkenly asked Draco, _Who takes care of you?_

 _You do_ , Draco had answered. Then, seeing the look on her face, he had corrected himself. _I mean, Cynthia-from-work. Cynthia-from-work looks out for me_. But it was too late. She knew he had meant it. Knew she was the only person Draco had, and the realisation had filled her with a weighty horror, the dread of knowing she couldn’t do it—she couldn’t take care of him. She could barely take care of herself. It was awful, knowing that Draco needed her like that.

When Harry had pulled her aside and told her to apologise to Draco, she had been outraged, obviously. Furious.

But also, she had been relieved. So deeply, fundamentally reassured, that she was no longer alone in loving Draco.

Harry said she could do anything she liked. Harry said she was brilliant and hard-working, and that he had faith in her. At first she had thought he only said it to look good in front of Draco, but eventually she had realised that he really meant it—that some people were kind without the expectation of anything in return. It still made her sad, that they loved each other more than her, but she was making her peace with it.

“Can I kiss you?” asked Sebastian.

“You don’t have to ask,” said Adelaide, but he always did, before they did anything serious. Always moved slowly towards her, and stopped to ask if she was okay.

He knew about Tertius. She had cried on him in a churchyard after a terrible party where everyone had been drinking and her head had been swimming and she had felt as if it was all too hard. It would have been so much easier to knock back a bottle of white wine and get to be someone else for a few hours. But she hurt Draco’s feelings when she drank—she hadn’t known that, before. Or she had, but she hadn’t considered it, what it meant. Draco logging her cruelty into his heart, never mentioning it, forgiving it.

Sebastian had found her.

“You’re shaking,” he’d said, and escorted her out, put his jacket over her shoulders, helped her climb over the gate of St Pancras Old Church Gardens. He settled her between his legs, propped up against a tombstone, and held her as she cried. And suddenly, strangely, he had reminded her of Draco—his calm voice, his gentle fingers stroking her hair, the way he rested his chin on the top of her head and didn’t try to speed her tears.

“When I was ten, my mother left…” she began.

Sometimes, he was annoying about it. Sometimes, he wanted her to talk about it when she just didn’t want to. But mostly it was this: him asking her to _give_ what he wanted, rather than taking it. Him kissing her slowly, calling her beautiful and perfect and special—he always called her special, which she had thought stupid at first. It had grown on her.

Next door, Draco put some music on in the kitchen. She heard Harry’s laugh float through the flat, and Draco say something quiet, something fond.

Adelaide put her arms around Sebastian’s neck. He looked uncertain. He often looked uncertain—he was very young. He rubbed his nose against hers, said, “is this okay?”

Youth had always been a liability for Adelaide, but suddenly it didn’t feel like that at all. It felt like freedom.

“Yes,” she said.

**Author's Note:**

> I will be recording this as a podfic in the next few weeks, you can find it on Spotify at the Gallapod! Also I’m on Instagram at @let_them_eat_books or you can join my NEWSLETTER at newsletter.gallapod.com. I’m all over the internet, is what I’m trying to tell you. 
> 
> This fic is part of HD Erised 2020; thank you so much for reading! You can show your appreciation for the author in a comment below. ♥


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